Preface

Observations, experiments and simulations in the sciences often have high impact visuals that never cease to provide insight into the Universe. This book is the result of exploring comprehensive software packages in 3D visualization for research in astronomy and astrophysics. Surveying the broader scope of a variety of scientific fields, we can see that the incredible results of our experiments can benefit in communicating results to both the scientific community as well as a broader audience.

This book is intended for the individual investigator or ambitious student to begin learning the fundamentals of 3D visualization for science. We utilize Blender, an agile and comprehensive software package for data visualization and animation. The application programming interface allows scientists to import and manipulate their data through the Python language. After introducing the fundamentals, the book concludes with a number of illustrative projects to bring various components together culminating in a series of visualizations.

A website is also available as a companion to the book with example files and videos providing the user with step-by-step instructions on principles and projects outlined in the text. It is my hope that these will serve as a launching point for scientists to take their data visualizations to the next level.

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