Although my review of this paper is not entirely positive, many well-thought-out, well-written details are presented. Therefore, there should be no mystery to readers that they should read this paper because it is sufficiently well organized, information worthy, and insightful enough to deserve your valuable time. It correctly directs our attention to an increasingly critical role of graphics in negotiations: of what complex data might really suggest.

It addresses assumptions, capabilities, and the availability of communications infrastructures, computation platforms, and cutting-edge computer graphics presentation tools. Central to this paper is a case study using the configuration that the authors have developed to facilitate a visualization-centric discussion of “climate impact research.” The authors correctly look forward to expanding the presentation scenario to more complex formats, although they still seem far from merging their meeting room concepts with diverse and often culturally peculiar formats that emerge from the experience of meetings occurring among distant peoples or between parties of diverse backgrounds. Of course, the day might unfortunately be won by participants who are most facile in graphics tools, rather than by those having the most insightful awareness or over-the-horizon sensitivity. Alternatively, the authors may be naive about how visualization dynamics will impact less-than-altruistic discussions, such as the manipulation of market choices, political opinions, social thought, military preparedness, or worse. Trying to peek further into the future, I look forward to the day when visualizations become part of the ongoing discussion-of-everything for social networking and interactive news reporting.