Speaker: Hamish Carr
Title: Contour Trees in Visualisation

Abstract:
As data scales from gigabyte to terabyte, it becomes impossible to
display all of the data at once and rely on the human eye to extract
meaning.  Visualisation of huge data sets therefore relies on
abstractions that encapsulate information about the features in the
data. One of the most successful abstractions in recent years is the
contour tree, which analyses how features are connected to each other. 
We will survey the applications of the contour tree to visualisation and
graphics. We will also consider its relationship to other topological
structures, the Reeb graph and the Morse-Smale complex, and ask what
future developments are likely in the application of topology to
visualisation.