Visualization and Optimization

This book arose out of an invited feature article on visualization and opti mization that appeared in the ORSA Journal on Computing in 1994. That article briefly surveyed the current state of the art in visualization as it ap plied to optimization. In writing the feature article, it became clear that there was much more to say. Apparently others agreed, and thus this book was born. The book is targeted primarily towards the optimization community rather than the visualization community. Although both optimization and visualization both seek to help people understand complex problems, prac titioners in one field are generally unaware of work in the other field. Given the common goals of the respective fields, it seemed fruitful to consider how each can contribute to the other. One might argue that this book should not be focused specifically on optimization but on decision making in general. Perhaps, but it seems that there is sufficient material to create a book targeted specifically to optimization. Certainly many of the ideas presented in the book are appli cable to other areas, including computer simulation, decision theory and stochastic modeling. Another book could discuss the use of visualization in these areas.

Texte du rabat

This book examines ongoing research and practice in using visualization to represent optimization models, explore optimum solutions, and summarize the results of the optimization effort. As research in optimization develops more powerful algorithms capable of analyzing ever more complicated problems, an increasing number of excellent books have been written to explain how to construct optimization models and how to build algorithms to analyze these models. However, solving problems using optimization techniques involves more than just developing newer, faster algorithms. Building, debugging, validating and understanding models and algorithms requires appropriate representations. This book describes how scientific visualization can enhance the representations needed for optimization. Although books on visualization exist, none of them have specifically addressed how visualization can contribute to optimization practice and research. In this book, relevant techniques of computer graphics, virtual reality, sonification, among others, are examined and specifically targeted to optimization. Moreover, applications of optimization to visualization are also explored.

Contenu
1 Introduction.- 1 A Framework for Visualization and Optimization.- 2 People.- 3 Text and Tables.- 4 Graphics and Animation.- 5 Sound and Touch.- 6 Hypermedia and Virtual Reality.- II Visualization and the Modeling Life-cycle Bibliography.- 7 Conceptual Models.- 8 Formulation.- 9 Algorithm Execution.- 10 Solution Analysis.- III Visualization for Optimization.- 11 Text.- 12 Hypertext.- 13 Networks and Graphs.- 14 Multiple Dimensions.- 15 Animation.- 16 Sound, Touch and Virtual Reality.- 17 Visualization Tools.- 18 Integration.- 19 Research and Future Directions.- Colophon.- Author Index.