visualize

Verb

visualize (third-person singular simple present visualizes, present participle visualizing, simple past and past participle visualized)

1. (transitive) To perceive (something) visually; to see.
   • Be sure to find an area far away from the city or street lights, the darker the better. Lean back or lie flat on your back with your feet facing south and visualize as much of the sky as possible. Most meteors appear as faint streaks in the sky.2023 December 13, Carrie Hodgin, Brian Slocum, “When is the Best Time to View the Meteor Shower? Everything to Know about the Geminids Meteor Shower”, in WXII-TV, Winston-Salem, N.C., archived from...
2. (transitive) To depict (something) in a way which can be seen.
   • to visualize data using a chart
   • When [Vincent] van Gogh paints sunflowers, he reveals, or achieves, the vivid relation between himself, as man, and the sunflower, as sunflower, at that quick moment in time. His painting does not represent the sunflower itself. We shall never know what the sunflower itself is. And the camera will...1925, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “[Literature and Art.] Morality and the Novel.”, in Edward D[avid] McDonald, editor, Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence, London: William Heinemann...
3. (transitive) To form a mental picture of (something); to picture (something) in the mind; to envisage.
   • In our own poetry we get from [Geoffrey] Chaucer the first instance of self-analysis and description, the first case of visualising self.1899, F. F. Leighton, “‘In My Mind’s Eye, Horatio’”, in Life and Books, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin […], →OCLC, page 13
   • The humanitarian, frequently ignoring hard reality, visualises one cosmopolitan community where justice and social sympathy measured in terms of some one set of units reign supreme.1921 October, Lynden Macassey, “Labour and the League of Nations […] [book reviews]”, in Harold Cox, editor, The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, volume 234, number 478, London: Longmans, Green...
4. (transitive) To make (a hidden or unclear body part, process, or object) visible by optical methods (such as endoscopy, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound, or X-rays), or other techniques.
   • An investigation is described in which the phenomena of afterglow were utilized to make visible the low-density supersonic flows of various gases. […] The afterglow is shown to be effective in visualizing some of the features of the flow in this range of low densities where it is difficult or...1949 June, Thomas W. Williams, James M. Benson, “Summary”, in Preliminary Investigation of the Use of Afterglow for Visualizing Low-density Compressible Flows (Technical Note; 1900), Washington...
   • When small masses are to be detected, it is necessary to visualise as much of the lung as possible with as little structured noise as possible. This is accomplished with high-voltage, wide-latitude, image recording and possibly beam equalisation.2003, International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements, Image Quality in Chest Radiography (ICRU Report; 70), Ashford, Kent: Nuclear Technology Publishing, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 84

   Antonyms:

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5. (intransitive) To perceive something visually.
   • His first impression was that he had tackled a dozen Oochaks instead of one. Beyond that first impression his mind did not work, nor did his eyes visualize.1919, James Oliver Curwood, chapter 10, in Nomads of the North: A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, page 129
6. (intransitive) To form a mental picture of something; to picture something in the mind.