Recognizing the growing importance of digital data in research and education and the advancement of science, NSF's Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery describes a vision for the future "in which science and engineering digital data are routinely deposited in well-documented form, are regularly and easily consulted and analyzed by specialists and non-specialists alike, are openly accessible while suitably protected, and are reliably preserved." A 5-year goal to achieve this vision is to support development of a new generation of tools and services facilitating data mining, integration, analysis, and visualization essential to turning data into new knowledge and understanding.
This two-day workshop will gather critical consumer stakeholders that rely upon visualization as a part of their critical thinking and problem solving processes, developing a clear picture of the needs, challenges, and gaps in current visualization and analysis techniques that impede solution of grand challenge science problems. The resulting report is intended to serve as a call to arms for the visualization and analytics communities at follow-on workshops, including one to be co-located with IEEE Visualization 2007. This workshop thus represents a key initial step in achieving the goal articulated in the Vision document.
