Computer graphics for scientific computing

In this paper we trace the development of computer graphics, both in terms of hardware and software. Clear evidence of the importance of graphics today is the recent emergence of a set of international standards. These provide a foundation for graphics programming, and in this paper the three standards GKS, GKS-3D and PRIGS, are each described briefly. There is a standard too for the storage and transfer of graphical data, namely the Computer Graphics Metafile, and this is also described. A number of packages for scientific graphics have been developed over the past twenty years. These largely predate the graphics standards effort. In this paper some of these packages are reviewed and the problem of integrating them with the new standards is discussed. Finally we look to the future and forecast how the relationship between scientific computation and computer graphics is likely to