Visualization (or visualisation in Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), also known as graphics visualization, is any technique for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message. Visualization through visual imagery has been an effective way to communicate both abstract and concrete ideas since the dawn of humanity. Examples from history include cave paintings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Greek geometry, and Leonardo da Vinci's revolutionary methods of technical drawing for engineering purposes that actively involve scientific requirements. Visualization today has ever-expanding applications in science, education, engineering (e.g., product visualization), interactive multimedia, medicine, etc. Typical of a visualization application is the field of computer graphics. The invention of computer graphics (and 3D computer graphics) may be the most important development in visualization since the invention of central perspective in the Renaissance period. The development of animation also helped advance visualization. == Overview == The use of visualization to present information is not a new phenomenon. It has been used in maps, scientific drawings, and data plots for over a thousand years. Examples from cartography include Ptolemy's Geographia (2nd century AD), a map of China (1137 AD), and Minard's map (1861) of Napoleon's invasion of Russia a century and a half ago. Most of the concepts learned in devising these images carry over in a straightforward manner to computer visualization. Edward Tufte has written three critically acclaimed books that explain many of these principles. Computer graphics has from its beginning been used to study scientific problems. However, in its early days the lack of graphics power often limited its usefulness. The recent emphasis on visualization started in 1987 with the publication of Visualization in Scientific Computing, a special issue of Computer Graphics. Since then, there have been several conferences and workshops, co-sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society and ACM SIGGRAPH, devoted to the general topic, and special areas in the field, for example volume visualization. Most people are familiar with the digital animations produced to present meteorological data during weather reports on television, though few can distinguish between those models of reality and the satellite photos that are also shown on such programs. TV also offers scientific visualizations when it shows computer drawn and animated reconstructions of road or airplane accidents. Some of the most popular examples of scientific visualizations are computer-generated images that show real spacecraft in action, out in the void far beyond Earth, or on other planets. Dynamic forms of visualization, such as educational animation or timelines, have the potential to enhance learning about systems that change over time. Apart from the distinction between interactive visualizations and animation, the most useful categorization is probably between abstract and model-based scientific visualizations. The abstract visualizations show completely conceptual constructs in 2D or 3D. These generated shapes are completely arbitrary. The model-based visualizations either place overlays of data on real or digitally constructed images of reality or make a digital construction of a real object directly from the scientific data. Scientific visualization is usually done with specialized software, though there are a few exceptions, noted below. Some of these specialized programs have been released as open source software, having very often its origins in universities, within an academic environment where sharing software tools and giving access to the source code is common. There are also many proprietary software packages of scientific visualization tools. Models and frameworks for building visualizations include the data flow models popularized by systems such as AVS, IRIS Explorer, and VTK toolkit, and data state models in spreadsheet systems such as the Spreadsheet for Visualization and Spreadsheet for Images. == Applications == === Scientific visualization === As a subject in computer science, scientific visualization is the use of interactive, sensory representations, typically visual, of abstract data to reinforce cognition, hypothesis building, and reasoning. Scientific visualization is the transformation, selection, or representation of data from simulations or experiments, with an implicit or explicit geometric structure, to allow the exploration, analysis, and understanding of the data. Scientific visualization focuses and emphasizes the representation of higher order data using primarily graphics and animation techniques. It is a very important part of visualization and maybe the first one, as the visualization of experiments and phenomena is as old as science itself. Traditional areas of scientific visualization are flow visualization, medical visualization, astrophysical visualization, and chemical visualization. There are several different techniques to visualize scientific data, with isosurface reconstruction and direct volume rendering being the more common. === Data and information visualization === Data visualization is a related subcategory of visualization dealing with statistical graphics and geospatial data (as in thematic cartography) that is abstracted in schematic form. Information visualization concentrates on the use of computer-supported tools to explore large amount of abstract data. The term "information visualization" was originally coined by the User Interface Research Group at Xerox PARC and included Jock Mackinlay. Practical application of information visualization in computer programs involves selecting, transforming, and representing abstract data in a form that facilitates human interaction for exploration and understanding. Important aspects of information visualization are dynamics of visual representation and the interactivity. Strong techniques enable the user to modify the visualization in real-time, thus affording unparalleled perception of patterns and structural relations in the abstract data in question. === Educational visualization === Educational visualization is using a simulation to create an image of something so it can be taught about. This is very useful when teaching about a topic that is difficult to otherwise see, for example, atomic structure, because atoms are far too small to be studied easily without expensive and difficult to use scientific equipment. === Knowledge visualization === The use of visual representations to transfer knowledge between at least two persons aims to improve the transfer of knowledge by using computer and non-computer-based visualization methods complementarily. Thus properly designed visualization is an important part of not only data analysis but knowledge transfer process, too. Knowledge transfer may be significantly improved using hybrid designs as it enhances information density but may decrease clarity as well. For example, visualization of a 3D scalar field may be implemented using iso-surfaces for field distribution and textures for the gradient of the field. Examples of such visual formats are sketches, diagrams, images, objects, interactive visualizations, information visualization applications, and imaginary visualizations as in stories. While information visualization concentrates on the use of computer-supported tools to derive new insights, knowledge visualization focuses on transferring insights and creating new knowledge in groups. Beyond the mere transfer of facts, knowledge visualization aims to further transfer insights, experiences, attitudes, values, expectations, perspectives, opinions, and estimates in different fields by using various complementary visualizations. See also: picture dictionary, visual dictionary === Product visualization === Product visualization involves visualization software technology for the viewing and manipulation of 3D models, technical drawing and other related documentation of manufactured components and large assemblies of products. It is a key part of product lifecycle management. Product visualization software typically provides high levels of photorealism so that a product can be viewed before it is actually manufactured. This supports functions ranging from design and styling to sales and marketing. Technical visualization is an important aspect of product development. Originally technical drawings were made by hand, but with the rise of advanced computer graphics the drawing board has been replaced by computer-aided design (CAD). CAD-drawings and models have several advantages over hand-made drawings such as the possibility of 3-D modeling, rapid prototyping, and simulation. 3D product visualization promises more interactive experiences for online shoppers, but also challenges retailers to overcome hurdles in the production of 3D content, as large-scale 3D content production can be extremel
Landmark point
In morphometrics, landmark point or shortly landmark is a point in a shape object in which correspondences between and within the populations of the object are preserved. In other disciplines, landmarks may be known as vertices, anchor points, control points, sites, profile points, 'sampling' points, nodes, markers, fiducial markers, etc. Landmarks can be defined either manually by experts or automatically by a computer program. There are three basic types of landmarks: anatomical landmarks, mathematical landmarks or pseudo-landmarks. An anatomical landmark is a biologically-meaningful point in an organism. Usually experts define anatomical points to ensure their correspondences within the same species. Examples of anatomical landmark in shape of a skull are the eye corner, tip of the nose, jaw, etc. Anatomical landmarks determine homologous parts of an organism, which share a common ancestry. Mathematical landmarks are points in a shape that are located according to some mathematical or geometrical property, for instance, a high curvature point or an extreme point. A computer program usually determines mathematical landmarks used for an automatic pattern recognition. Pseudo-landmarks are constructed points located between anatomical or mathematical landmarks. A typical example is an equally spaced set of points between two anatomical landmarks to get more sample points from a shape. Pseudo-landmarks are useful during shape matching, when the matching process requires a large number of points.
Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware
Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware or simply Tiki, originally known as TikiWiki, is a free and open source Wiki-based content management system and online office suite written primarily in PHP and distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL-2.1-only) license. In addition to enabling websites and portals on the internet and on intranets and extranets, Tiki contains a number of collaboration features allowing it to operate as a Geospatial Content Management System (GeoCMS) and Groupware web application. Tiki includes all the basic features common to most CMSs such as the ability to register and maintain individual user accounts within a flexible and rich permission / privilege system, create and manage menus, RSS-feeds, customize page layout, perform logging, and administer the system. All administration tasks are accomplished through a browser-based user interface. Tiki features an all-in-one design, as opposed to a core+extensions model followed by other CMSs. This allows for future-proof upgrades (since all features are released together), but has the drawback of an extremely large codebase (more than 1,000,000 lines). Tiki can run on any computing platform that supports both a web server capable of running PHP 5 (including Apache HTTP Server, IIS, Lighttpd, Hiawatha, Cherokee, and nginx) and a MySQL/MariaDB database to store content and settings. == Major components == Tiki has four major categories of components: content creation and management tools, content organization tools and navigation aids, communication tools, and configuration and administration tools. These components enable administrators and users to create and manage content, as well as letting them communicate to others and configure sites. In addition, Tiki allows each user to choose from various visual themes. These themes are implemented using CSS and the open source Smarty template engine. Additional themes can be created by a Tiki administrator for branding or customization as well. == Internationalization == Tiki is an international project, supporting many languages. The default interface language in Tiki is English, but any language that can be encoded and displayed using the UTF-8 encoding can be supported. Translated strings can be included via an external language file, or by translating interface strings directly, through the database. As of 29 September 2005, Tiki had been fully translated into eight languages and reportedly 90% or more translated into another five languages, as well as partial translations for nine additional languages. Tiki also supports interactive translation of actual wiki pages and was the initial wiki engine used in the Cross Lingual Wiki Engine Project. This allows Tiki-based web sites to have translated content — not just the user interface. == Implementation == Tiki is developed primarily in PHP with some JavaScript code. It uses MySQL/MariaDB as a database. It will run on any server that provides PHP 5, including Apache and Microsoft's IIS. Tiki components make extensive use of other open source projects, including Zend Framework, Smarty, jQuery, HTML Purifier, FCKeditor, Raphaël, phpCAS, and Morcego. When used with Mapserver Tiki can become a Geospatial Content Management System. == Project team == Tiki is under active development by a large international community of over 300 developers and translators, and is one of the largest open-source teams in the world. Project members have donated the resources and bandwidth required to host the tiki.org website and various subdomains. The project members refer to this dependence on their own product as "eating their own dogfood", which they have been doing since the early days of the project. Tiki community members also participate in various related events such as WikiSym and the Libre Software Meeting. == History == Tiki has been hosted on SourceForge.net since its initial release (Release 0.9, named Spica) in October 2002. It was primarily the development of Luis Argerich (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Eduardo Polidor (São Paulo, Brazil), and Garland Foster (Green Bay, WI, United States). In July 2003, Tiki was named the SourceForge.net July 2003 Project of the Month. In late 2003, a fork of Tiki was used to create Bitweaver. In 2006, Tiki was named to CMS Report's Top 30 Web Applications. In 2008, Tiki was named to EContent magazine's Top 100 In 2009, Tiki adopted a six-month release cycle and announced the selection of a Long Term Support (LTS) version and the Tiki Software Community Association was formed as the legal steward for Tiki. The Tiki Software Association is a not-for-profit entity established in Canada. Previously, the entire project was run entirely by volunteers. In 2010, Tiki received Best of Open Source Software Applications Award (BOSSIE) from InfoWorld, in the Applications category. In 2011, Tiki was named to CMS Report's Top 30 Web Applications. In 2012, Tiki was named "Best Web Tool" by WebHostingSearch.com, and "People's Choice: Best Free CMS" by CMS Critic. In 2016, Tiki was named as one of the "10 Best Open Source Collaboration Software Tools" by Small Business Computing. == Name == The name TikiWiki is written in CamelCase, a common Wiki syntax indicating a hyperlink within the Wiki. It is most likely a compound word combining two Polynesian terms, Tiki and Wiki, to create a self-rhyming name similar to wikiwiki, a common variant of wiki. A backronym has also been formed for Tiki: Tightly Integrated Knowledge Infrastructure. == Release Information and History == In general, the Tiki Software Community Association releases a new major version of Tiki Wiki every 8 months where prior, non-LTS, major versions are supported until the first minor version release of the next major version (i.e., 16.0 ⇒ 17.1). Starting with version 12.x, Tiki Wiki LTS is supported for 5 years where it enters a security/maintenance release cycle upon the release of the next LTS version. Tiki Wiki's release history is outlined below.
Mentimeter
Mentimeter (or Menti for short) is a Swedish company based in Stockholm that develops and maintains an eponymous app used to create presentations with real-time feedback. == Foundation and background == Based in Stockholm, Sweden, the Mentimeter app was started by Swedish entrepreneur Johnny Warström and Niklas Ingvar as a response to unproductive meetings. The initial start-up budget was $500,000 raised by a group of prominent investors, including Per Appelgren in 2014, following the market's tendency to invest in Scandinavia. The app also focuses on online collaboration for the education sector, allowing students or public members to answer questions anonymously. The app enables users to share knowledge and real-time feedback on mobile devices with presentations, polls or brainstorming sessions in classes, meetings, gatherings, conferences and other group activities. == Achievements == By 2021, Mentimeter had over 270 million users and was one of Sweden's fastest-growing startups. The company also ranked #10 on 20 Fastest Growing 500 Startups Batch 16 Companies. It was ranked Stockholm's fastest growing company of the 2018 edition of the DI Gasell Award. Mentimeter has a freemium business model.
The Outliner of Giants
The Outliner of Giants was commercial outlining software. Like other outliners, it allowed the user to create a document consisting of a series of nested lists. It was one of a number of browser-based outliners that are delivered as a web application, used through a web browser, rather than being installed as a stand-alone application. The Outliner of Giants was released in 2009. The service was shut down on December 31, 2017 and only exports are allowed at this time. == Feature set == Unlike most other browser-based outliners - which often focus on providing a minimum viable product - the Outliner of Giants had much of the functionality typically associated with a desktop outliner, such as the ability to use of columns to structure information. However, The Outliner of Giants did not support offline editing, requiring an active internet connection in order to make changes to an outline document. === Outlining === Like all outliners, The Outliner of Giants supported the creation of a hierarchy of items, with users modifying the parent-child relationship between items in order to structure a document. This included the ability to promote or demote items up or down the hierarchy, or move an item up or down a list of siblings on the same level. The Outliner of Giants did not support the true cloning of items (where an item can appear to be in multiple places within the hierarchy at the same time), although it did support the copying of single or multiple nodes. === Import === The Outliner of Giants could import both plain text and the OPML XML format, which is commonly used to transfer data between outlining applications. === Editing === Outline documents could be edited using a WYSIWYG editor, as well as the Markdown, and Textile markup languages. === Annotation === The Outliner of Giants supported functions to annotate an outline, such as the ability to add colored labels, highlights and text, as well as tags and hashtags. === Collaboration === The Outliner of Giants supported real-time collaboration, where multiple users could edit the same document, and can see the changes made by another user as they happened. === Publication === Outlines created through The Outliner of Giants could be published directly online through the service, either as outlines, pages or in a blog format. === Export === The Outliner of Giants can export outline data as plain text, HTML, as well as directly to the Google Docs word processor.
Pixelmator Pro
Pixelmator Pro is a photo, video, and vector graphic editor developed by Apple for macOS and iPadOS as part of its Pixelmator and pro apps platforms and as a part of their Apple Creator Studio suite of applications. Pixelmator Pro relies heavily on technologies from Apple platforms such as Metal, CoreML, Core Image, AVFoundation, GCD, and SwiftUI. == Features == GPU accelerated with Metal 50+ standard image editing tools Layer-based image editor Video editing support Vector graphic support (including SVG support) AI-powered editing features such as background removal ML Super Resolution and Smart Replace Supports a variety of media formats (JPEG, RAW, Apple ProRAW, PSD, PNG, GIF, MP4, HEIF, etc) == Reception == Pixelmator Pro was generally well-received by reviewers who praised its deep use of machine learning, fully macOS-native design, and relatively affordable one-time purchase compared to subscription software such as Adobe Photoshop. Some reviewers criticized that some features are hard to find or hard to use. It was awarded Apple's Mac App of the Year in 2018. Pixelmator Pro does not have support for panorama stitching. == Acquisition by Apple == On November 1, 2024, the Pixelmator Team announced that they were to be acquired by Apple, subject to regulatory approval. Their site promises "There will be no material changes to the Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator apps at this time." The acquisition was completed in February 2025. On January 13, 2026, Apple announced that a new version of Pixelmator Pro with AI features would be included in its new Apple Creator Studio subscription, the app would be brought to the iPad and the Mac app would be redesigned with Liquid Glass. == Version history == == Applescript == In 2020 Pixelmator Pro added the ability to leverage Apple's automation language 'AppleScript' to automate many tasks in version 1.8 (Lynx). This enabled simple and advanced automation activities such as image resize, crop, color adjustments, format change, moving layers around, and more advanced actions like removing background, Gaussian blur, text replacement, shadows, color replacement, etc.
Spike (application)
Spike is a cross-platform email client and AI-powered communication app, available on Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android and the web. It has a chat-like, conversational view for emails with AI-powered inbox management and integrated collaboration features. Depending on the selected plan, it can be used solely as an email application or as a full suite of business communication tools. == History == Founded in 2013 by Erez Pilosof and Dvir Ben-Aroya, Spike is a software application that puts existing e-mails into a multimedia messaging, chat-like interface enhanced with video and voice calls. The application was initially named Hop. In 2019, the developers completed a $5 million funding round including investment from Wix.com and NFX Capital. In 2020, Spike raised $8m in a Series A funding round led by Insight Partners with the participation from previous rounds' investors. In 2021 Spike announced a collaboration with Meta to launch on the Oculus Store and would become one of the first productivity apps to launch in Meta's new virtual world, known as the Metaverse. In June 2023, the company introduced its corporate offering — Teamspace, a corporate communication platform for teams with features such as company-wide channels for broad conversations, private groups for specific topics or projects, direct one-on-one conversations, video meetings, file collaboration, AI-powered email messaging, and custom email domain. It supports file management, search capabilities, and project management. Built on open-protocol technology, Spike Teamspace enables users to send and receive messages from all email providers. Regardless of whether the other party is using Spike. == Company operations == Spike is developed and operated by SpikeNow LTD. Dvir Ben Aroya serves as Spike’s CEO and Erez Pilosof is the CTO. The company is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. == Mode of use == The app enables users to organize email into three types of "conversations,"a traditional inbox/sent format, by subject, or by people. Spike users can also make audio and video calls to each other, and other features include a calendar, contact list, and Groups. Spike is available for Microsoft Windows, MacOS, iOS and Android, and as a web version, and works with Gmail, Outlook, Exchange, iCloud, Yahoo! Mail and IMAP email providers. == Features == Since 2023, the platform features an AI-driven assistant, Magic AI, for customized email creation, document summarization, research, content generation, advanced note-taking, project management, and real-time translation. Since 2023, Spike offers custom email domain management. It supports team collaboration through Channels, uniting members globally with access to historical messages, and combines email with real-time messaging via Conversational Email. The Shared Inbox allows team collaboration on emails, while Groups support private conversations and invitations. It also features integrated video meetings, real-time collaboration on documents and notes, and email hosting with custom domains. Super Search enables retrieval of various content, and the Priority Inbox organizes emails by priority. Collaborative Tasks offer real-time updates and tracking. The platform allows voice message sending from mobile devices and integrates multiple calendar platforms into a unified schedule. File Management optimizes attachment handling, and the Unified Inbox consolidates emails from multiple accounts. Spike ensures data security with AES-256 encryption and private keys. The platform features AI-powered inbox management and communication tools. In May 2025, Spike launched its AI Feed feature, which automatically summarizes unread messages in a unified stream and enables bulk email actions. Additional AI capabilities include email composition assistance, document summarization, content generation, note-taking enhancement, and real-time translation.