There are two opposing objectives in the area of computer graphics
- Interactivity
- Photorealism
Two examples from either side of computer graphics
- Computer games (Doom, GTA V)
- Computer animated films (Monsters, Avatar)
We can’t get both at the same time:
- Aiming for higher photo-realism will slow the process of rendering a particular scene down.
- Aiming for a higher interactivity or even a real-time rendering usually requires a degradation of display quality.
The emphasis on one of those two objectives mainly determines the computer graphics techniques employed for a particular use case.
Visualization does not aim to achieve photo-realistic results, it is aiming at interactive exploration of 2D and 3D data by means of non-photorealistic computer graphics techniques, making the previously invisible visible.
So to speak, photo-realistic image synthesis, as another important part of computer graphics, is the opposite of visualization.
