HEP experiments have always needed visualization tools, like event displays. Those tools are used for a number of purposes and in a number of tasks: among them, detector development and upgrade, data analysis, reconstruction development and debug, simulation verification, outreach&education.
The visualization and computer graphics landscape outside HEP has largely evolved during these last years, with the introduction of new powerful consumer-level hardware and new software technologies and tools. Computer graphics field is driven by the game and movie industries and new tools and techniques are constantly developed. Moreover, interactive data visualization is an important topic in other sciences too, as medical imaging, geology and geophysics, and so forth.
The goals of this open workshop, convened by the HEP Software Foundation (HSF), are the presentation of the current situation of the HEP visualization software and of what is present on the market, the discussion of the future trends with a 5-10 years view and the building of a common view among the participants, representing experiments, groups and communities.
Some of the questions we want to address during this workshop:
The outcome will be a common plan for the writing of the Visualization chapter in the framework of the HSF Community White Paper process. The chapter will present the recommended guidelines for the future years, for the upgrade of the current experiments as well as for the design of the new experiments.