From personal experience, I knew that innovative ideas within my discipline often come from research in quite dissimilar disciplines. Michelle Borkin of Harvard University hit that nail squarely, driving it through the 2×4 with this TED talk. She relates medical imaging from MRI scans to astronomy data of distant nebulae. And, then she proceeds from there. Her parting comments is “You really never know where your next great idea is going to come from.”
Note the many ways that 3D data is gradually emerging from research in many disciplines. I feel that our current visualization tools are not providing a smooth transition to 3D data analysis from the traditional 2D visualization approaches. Perhaps cross-disciplinary exchanges will provide the necessary catalyst.
