I’ve been catching up on Brian Hayes’ great “Computing Science” column in American Scientist. The last issue’s “Pixels or Perish” discusses the move to interactive graphics from static print graphics:

Methods for producing scientific illustrations—and for reproducing them in publications—have been changing. Printing plates for figures were once engraved by hand, then made by a photographic process, and in recent years have been created by digital techniques. Now we are about to turn the page—if not close the book—on yet another chapter in publishing history. After centuries of reading and writing on paper, we seem to be headed for a world where most documents will be distributed online and viewed on a display screen of some kind. How will this transition to a new medium affect the practice of scientific illustration?

via FlowingData