Data Visualization: Virtual Geographic Environments combining AEC and GIS

A bit dated but a good article on visualization ...

"Visualization is a natural extension of communication and functions in the “visual thinking” domain. Visualization emphasizes intuitive representation of data so as to enable individuals to understand the nature of phenomena represented by the data. The visualization of data is one of the central tasks in the field of AEC (architecture/engineering/construction) and GIS. Data visualization makes use of the ability of the human eye to recognize structures and relationships that may be inherent within the data. However, the rapidly increasing amount of data precludes the presentation of all given data items. Furthermore, the complexity of many datasets surpasses the user’s ability to identify the gist or the underlying concepts. Advances in human-computer interaction have created completely new paradigms for exploring graphical information in a dynamic way, with flexible user control. Therefore more intuitive and efficient interactive visualization environments become increasingly significant for the visual exploration of large amounts of complicated spatio-temporal information."   continued ...   (Via Directions Magazine)