History

Quick article about the history of scientific visualization:
http://www.artn.com/bibliography/003_006_educom.html

excerpt:
During the Renaissance, popular belief held that the visual study of nature could, in fact, reveal the hidden laws of nature. This prompted da Vinci and other artists to look beneath the surface of the skin and to record the anatomy in detail. This was quite a revolutionary idea at the time. Artists and scientists began working together to create books -- anatomy and botany books -- and new disciplines were thus created that are still important tools for physicians and scientists today. This philosophy -- that you visually study nature to reveal the hidden laws of nature -- was developed by Renaissance artists and scientists, and it set the stage for the scientific revolution. Galileo developed the scientific methodology of visually and objectively recording data that may lead to the formation of hypotheses, having one's peers test these hypotheses, and eventually forming a scientific theory. This is how scientists still work today.