2008W MAT259 - Visualizing Information


2008W Instructor TA		MAT259 Visualizing Information(4 units) George Legrady Charlie Roberts Lecture: Tuesday 10:00-12:00, Lab: Thursday 10:00-12:00 - e-studio/Arts2220

Course Description		A lecture and lab course to explore the visual organization of information. Lectures, readings and technical demos will focus on a range of conceptual models of data visual mapping as implemented in various disciplines, artistic, statistical and scientific, that are used to represent information visually.

Resources Seattle Library Data		Visualizing Data, Ben Fry (highly recommended) Processing \| Publications OMA/LMN Concept Book \| Prince-Ramus \| SPL Pix Making Visible... \| ICHIM Paper \| Art Mapping Dewey Decimal Classification System Seattle Library Data \| ItemTypes \| SPL Histogram Angus Forbes Visualization \| [1][2][3][4] \| code

Final Projects		Check-out Durations - 3D Visualizations : This project visualizes the Seattle Public Library check-in data for the month of November in 2007. It is an interactive 3D model that allows the user to navigate through the data and view it from different perspectives. \| Melissa Carrasco Analysis of SPL's check-out items in 2007 : I am analyzing the data from Seattle Public Library. Basically I am keeping track of the the total items that people checked-out over entire year of 2007 and separate these check-out items into books & media category. After I have the check-out amount for these two categories over the entire 2007 year, I create my visualization in 3D & also add some animation along with my visualization. \| Yung-Ting Chuang Music Visualizer : People listen to music and experience different feelings, comparable to those when people observe a painting. Since my emphasis at MAT is Visual and Spatial Arts, I would like to try to find a way to visualize music, as if it was a painting. \| Jeungah Kim Dewey Trends : Dewey Trends is an interactive visualization tool for examining and comparing checkout patterns of Dewey subjects. \| Michael McDaniel Panuakdet Suwannatat

[wk 1]......Lecture 1.08		Introduction
		- Course goals: Technique, syntax of visual language for visualization - Structure: lecture/lab \| 2 projects : xml - Literature Review \| Resources \| research / readings - Wattenberg [HistoryFlow][SmartMoney] - Fry [Salary/performance]

Lab 1.10		Processing
		- Introduction to the Processing environment - XML parsing \| XML Basics - Basic display of data in Processing

Review		Class presentation resources

[wk 2]......Lecture 1.15		Visual Communication Basics (ppt)
		- Basic principles - Visualization Definition - NYTimes [Iraq 2006 ] [Iraq 2008 ] [Iraq 2003-08] - Old Graphs [insect_flutter][2color][3DataGraph] - Swiss 1953 poster [with grid]

Lab 1.17		Visualizing XML Data
		- How to visualize parsed XML in Processing using the ProXML Library

Reading		Information Interaction Design: A Unified Field Theory of Design, Shedroff

[wk 3]......Lecture 1.22		Discipline Specific Perspectives
		- Historical examples Tufte [2] - Scientific Visualization Studio: NASA \| Wolfram's New Kind of Science - Library Science: Information retrieval \| data mapping - Social Science/Geography: GIS \| CyberSpace - Information Aesthetics: Info Aesthetics \| Visual Complexity \| generatorx

Lab 1.24		Visualize 2D
		- Creating classes in Processing

Reading		Organic Information Design, Ben Fry

[wk 4].....Lecture 1.29		Design Techniques
Font/Typography		- Swiss Graphic design \| Additional Links - Form/Architecture: \| Bauhaus \| Hebert/Max Bill \| Giedion \| Weissenhoff \| - Visual Spatial Concept Development: Warsaw Subway System \| Asymptote - Typography \| Grotesk Akzidenz [ft] \| Frutiger \| Univers [ft] [55][57]\| - Helvetica \| Futura \| Tschibold \| - Metadesign \| HES Geneva (serif) - ASCII: o-o \| asco-o.com \| www \| - Feltron [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] \| Sojamo \| - Corporate Design: Vignelli \| Mau \| Projekttriangle \| Designers Republic

Lab 1.31		Processing + Critiques
		- Next step visualization \| OR \| Access book cover icons from Amazon

Reading		Organic Information Design, Ben Fry

[wk 5]...........Lab 2.05		Project Development \| Individual meetings

Presentation 2.07		SPL Data Visualization Projects
		Melissa Carrasco Yung-Ting Chuang Jeungah Kim Michael McDaniel Panuakdet Suwannatat

Reading		Aesthetic Techniques for Visual Information, August Black

[wk 6]......Lecture 2.12		Data Visualization
		- Munzner [graphs] [google lecture] - Sunset \| CatalogTree \| Textarc \| IBM Many eyes - InfoVis Indiana University

Lab 2.14		Animation \| Interactivity \| Imaging
		Retrieving image data from internet and displaying it in Processing. Adding interactivity and animation to visualizations.

[wk 7]......Lecture 2.19		Time Based Visualization & Narrative
		- Study of a Numerically Modelled Severe Storm, UIUC \| Video \| 3D models - Narrative in Severe Storm - Invisible Shape of Things Past, Art+Com

lab 2.21		Processing

		3D visualization in Processing
Reading		After the Storm, Baker and Bushell \| Tufte Response

[wk 8]......Lecture 2.26		Metaphor, Interactive
		- Still and time based visualization (Boissier, Comella) - Conceptual metaphor (Lakoff) - The Last Clock, Ängeslevä & Ross Cooper \| Tangent

Lab 2.28		Kohonen Map Algorithm
		- Honkela \| Kohonen - Skupin [paper] [paper] - Angus Proj \| Godwin Proj

Reading		Self-Organizing Maps, Douglass



[wk 9]..............Lab 3.04		Independent Meetings

Lab 3.06		Work-in_progress presentation


[wk 10]............Lab 3.11		Dead Week; Production
Lab 3.13		Dead Week; Production

[wk 11]................. 3.25		Final Presentations


Additional Reference Texts		Else/Where: Mapping New cartographies of Networks and Territories, Abrams/Hall Information Visualization, Robert Spence, ACM Press Information Visualization: Perception for Design, Colin Ware, Morgan Kaufmann The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Edward Tufte Information Visualization, Chaomei Chen

Grading		- Completion of 2 projects 40% each - Participation and Literature Review 20% The course is designed to accommodate both beginning and advanced students. All students will be expected to perform at the level of their expertise.