All-natural animation.(editor's note)(Editorial)

For years, we've been waving the flag that the visualization and simulation market has been one of the most dynamic in the computer graphics industry. Now, the latest research confirms that the trend is continuing. According to a new 3D Visualization and Simulation report from Acacia Research Group, sales of products and services to viz/sim markets--including scientific and medical, defense and government, design and engineering, and industry and business segments--will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 16 percent through 2007.

The main reasons for this solid upswing are obvious. No other technique has been as valuable in helping researchers explore data by visualizing the otherwise invisible. But recently, simulations and visualizations have been finding their way out of research labs and into mainstream applications. Indeed, scientifically accurate CG animations have been appearing in everything from television news and special programming to presentations to corporate and government funding agencies.

Some of the most dramatic examples have been the animations created to explain the recent Mars mission to a non-technical audience. In fact, one of these, an "engineering-accurate" CG animation of the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, is part of the testimony that NASA is scheduled to present to the US Congressional Science, Technology, and Space Subcommittee about the technology used in NASA's Mars Exploration Program (see http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/video/spirit01.html).

The animation, created for NASA by Analytical Mechanics Associates in Hampton, Virginia, drew on telemetry information received during Spirit's actual landing and assigned it to the elements of the CG craft, including its parachute, shield, lander, ...