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CORVALLIS, Ore. - If you ever wanted to see towering mountains that rise from the seafloor as you glide over them, or gain a whole new perspective on the world around you, the 2007 Winter Seminar Series offered by the Department of Geosciences at Oregon State University may provide that chance.

The series, titled "Geovisualization: A Window to Earth Surface, Structure and System," will be held from January through March and provide 10 leading experts in the field of visualizing spatial data.

The presentations are free and open to the public, and each of them will begin on a Tuesday at 4 p.m. in Gilfillan Auditorium on the OSU campus. More details on the lectures and presenters can be found on the web at http://dusk2.geo.orst.edu/geoviz07.html

"Geovisualization combines approaches such as 3-D mapping, image processing, computer graphics, animation, simulation, and virtual reality to help present information in a new way," said Dawn Wright, professor of geosciences at OSU and an expert in geographic information science. "This is a particularly hot area of research right now. We believe it will let us identify patterns, develop a greater understanding and lead to solutions for both some scientific and societal problems."

Support for the seminar series is provided by the OSU Department of Geosciences, the OSU Foundation's L.L. Stewart Faculty Development Fund, the OSU IGERT Program in Ecosystem Informatics, and Oregon Space Grant.

The speakers and their topics include:

• Jan. 9: Mark Harrower, University of Wisconsin, "Visualizing Geographic Processes";
• Jan. 16: Tim Holt, OSU Department of Forest Science, "Games Get Serious: Computer Games for Visualization and More";
• Jan. 23: Rob Edsall, Arizona State University, "Interactive Spatiotemporal Representations, Visualizations of Health Statistics";
• Jan. 30: Mike Bailey, OSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, "3-D Scientific Visualization, High Performance Computer Graphics";
• Feb. 6: Mark Gahegan, Penn State, "Visualization, analytics and Spatial Decision Support in the Geosciences Network";
• Feb. 13: May Yuan, University of Oklahoma, "Temporal GIS for Meteorological Applications and Representation Models for Dynamic Geographic Phenomena";
• Feb. 20: Kirk Goldsberry, UC Santa Barbara, "Real-time Traffic Maps for the Internet and Mobile Devices";
• Feb. 27: Julie Dillemuth, UC Santa Barbara, "Multi-domain Geovisualization of News Stories";
• March 6: Randy Keller, University of Oklahoma, "Constructing, Editing, and Visualizing Integrated Models of Earth Structure";
• March 13: Bob Crippen, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, "NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Visualization of Earth Landscapes."