cs5984: Information Visualization

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cs5984 Information Visualization

• Chris North
• GTA Purvi Saraiya
• Infovis meister Nathan

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What is Information Visualization?

• The use of computer-supported, interactive,
  visual representations of abstract data to
  amplify cognition

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The Big Problem
Web,books, papers, game scores, Scientific
data, Biotech, Shopping People Stock/finance News

Human
Data
Data Transfer
How?
Vision 100 MB/s Ears lt100 b/s Telepathy Haptic
/tactile Smell taste
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Human Vision

• Highest bandwidth sense
• Fast, parallel
• Pattern recognition
• Pre-attentive
• Extends memory and cognitive capacity
• (Multiplication test)
• People think visually
• Impressive. Lets use it!

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• Which state has highest Income?
• Relationship between Income and Education?
• Outliers?

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College Degree
Per Capita Income
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• What if you could only see 1 states data at a
  time? (e.g. Census Bureaus website)
• What if I read the data to you?

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Find the green square?
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History Static Graphics
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Interactive Graphics

• Homefinder

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More than just data transfer

• Support the ability to glean higher level
  knowledge from the data
• Learn data ? knowledge
• Insight!

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Whats the Big Deal?
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• Presentation is everything!

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Optimization My Philosophy

• Computer
• Serial
• Symbolic
• Static
• Deterministic
• Exact
• Binary, 0/1
• Computation
• Programmed
• Follow instructions
• Amoral

• Human
• Parallel
• Visual
• Dynamic
• Non-deterministic
• Fuzzy
• Gestalt, whole, patterns
• Understanding
• Free will
• Creative
• Moral

• Visualization the best of both
• Impressive computation impressive cognition

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You will learn how to

• Design visual, interactive representations
• Critique existing designs
• Development visualization software
• Empirically evaluate designs
• An HCI focus
• A visualization a user interface for data

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Related Courses

• Scientific Visualization (ESM4714)
• Computer Graphics (4204, 6xxx)
• Usability Engineering (5714)
• Research Methods! (5014)
• Model Theories of HCI (5724)
• User Interface Software (5984)
• Info Storage Retrieval (5604)
• Databases (5614)

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Course Mechanics

• Grading
• 10 Paper presentation discussion
• 30 Homeworks
• 60 Project
• Format
• Research class
• Read research papers
• Discussion
• Contribute to research, Project!
• dude.cs.vt.edu

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Research Class

• Creativity
• No right answer
• Reasoning/argument is more important
• Self motivation
• Open ended
• Contribute to the state-of-the-art
• Jump start for thesis research

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Research

• Learning the state-of-the-art
• Creativity (Design)
• Science (Measurement,Modeling)
• Dissemination
• project

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HW 1

• Due sept 6, thurs
• Find some data
• 104c mcbryde
• Spotfire, tablelens(eureka), parallel coordinates
  (xmdvtool), star coordinates (stardeck).
• Pick 2
• What you learned about the data? 1 pg
• Comparison of the 2 tools. 1pg
• Purvi will give demo on Friday, and hours

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project

• Build a new visualization
• Evaluation
• Groups 2-4
• Choose topic
• Literature review
• Build it!
• Write a paper about it
• Give a presentation.