I don't think that it's fair to compare the rendering to what is currently in use in the scientific community, for two main reasons:
The first is that different types of rendering have different uses; typically in scientific visualization this is broken down into essentially "viz for self, viz for peers, viz for others" and oftentimes the most well-used rendering engines are targeted squarely at the first and second categories. The visual language in those categories is qualitatively different than that used for more "outward facing" renderings.
The second reason is that I disagree with your assertion about the quality of the visualization techniques in use within science. There are some truly spectacular visualization engines for cosmology and galaxy formation -- just to pick two examples off the top of my head, the work done by Ralf Kaehler or that by Dylan Nelson. (There are many really good examples, however, and I feel guilty not mentioning more.)
As I said in another, rather terse and unelaborated comment, though, this is really, really impressive work. I think it's important that in praising it, however, we don't discount the work that's been done elsewhere. This need not be zero-sum.
The first is that different types of rendering have different uses; typically in scientific visualization this is broken down into essentially "viz for self, viz for peers, viz for others" and oftentimes the most well-used rendering engines are targeted squarely at the first and second categories. The visual language in those categories is qualitatively different than that used for more "outward facing" renderings.
The second reason is that I disagree with your assertion about the quality of the visualization techniques in use within science. There are some truly spectacular visualization engines for cosmology and galaxy formation -- just to pick two examples off the top of my head, the work done by Ralf Kaehler or that by Dylan Nelson. (There are many really good examples, however, and I feel guilty not mentioning more.)
As I said in another, rather terse and unelaborated comment, though, this is really, really impressive work. I think it's important that in praising it, however, we don't discount the work that's been done elsewhere. This need not be zero-sum.