IMAGES AND REVERSALS is Visualization No Longer a New New Thing? Thomas G, West TheWoHd A c c o r d i n g to Jim C l a r k For most SIGGRAPH members, the acceptance of visualization seems really old hat. We've become accustomed to the fact that visualization' and computer graphics can be used for nearly everything - - from feature films to product design to physical science to understanding stock market trends. The important barriers to acceptance - - high power, speed and cost - - have largely fallen away of late, and it seems hard to remember a time when the idea of visualization being a useful and viable field was not obvious. However, it is useful to be reminded - - as in The New New Thing, Hichael Lewis' recent book about Jim Clark [ I ] - - t h a t this was not always the case. "'Computer graphics is as fundamental to computers as vision is to humans,' Clark wrote back in his teaching days.That thought, strange at the time, soon became commonplace:' Lewis notes that "a lot of people w h o should have seen the importance of
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