Visual Analytics (DA3013 / DA4024)

Professor

Time & Place

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The introduction will take place in room B340 (Knuth) at 2007-11-14, 10:15.

Teaching Period

II (week 46 in 2007 till week 3 in 2008)

Assessment

Preparation of a talk and writing an overview article about the chosen topic. Both tasks will have influence on the final grade.

Prerequisites

Basics in Computer Graphics (or corresponding courses)

Credits

7.5 ECTS

Topic

Visual Analytics

Visual Analytics is the formation of abstract visual metaphors in combination with a human information discourse (interaction) that enables detection of the expected and discovery of the unexpected within massive, dynamically changing information spaces. Visual Analytics is an outgrowth of the fields of scientific and information visualization (InfoVis) but includes technologies from many other fields, including knowledge management, data mining, statistical analysis, cognitive science, decision science, and many more. The processes and goals of analysis dominate the approach, but its enabled by the wide-band visual interface to the brain and a dynamic interaction style of communication and discourse [Wong and Thomas, 2004].

This course aims at giving an overview of the most important techniques and prerequisites needed to develop effective visualizations for analyzing massive, abstract information spaces.

Schedule

Preliminary Schedule:

#	Date	Topic
1	2007-11-14	Introduction
2	2007-11-21	Basics in InfoVis I
3	2007-11-28	Basics in InfoVis II
4	2007-12-05	Basics in InfoVis III
5	2008-01-09	Student Presentations

Detailed dates and room information can be found here.

Slides & Reports

Slides on basic InfoVis techniques can be found on the web page of the past InfoVis course DAC751. Additional slides (PDFs) on specific aspects of Visual Analytics can be downloaded here:

Slides of the talk of D. Keim at the Dagstuhl Seminar 07221.

Student presentations at Wednesday, 2008-01-09

10:15-11:15, Talk 1: Social Visual Analysis & Interaction
(Tatiana Braescu: Slides (660 KB), Report (730 KB))
11:15-12:15, Talk 2: Geo-Temporal Visual Analysis
(Arianit Kurti: Slides (740 MB), Report (1.3 MB))

Further Information

The course is organized as a classic seminar. At the beginning, some introductory lectures on Information Visualization and Visual Analytics will be given by the teacher. Then, each student will choose a specific topic and prepare a presentation on the basis of actual research papers and articles. Each presentation should take around 45 minutes + 15 minutes of discussion. Finally, each student will write an overview article (about 15-20 pages) on the chosen papers. Please, consider our general guidelines for seminars.

Recommended reading:
The course is mainly based on research papers. These will be chosen at the beginning of the course. In general, interesting books are:

A. Kerren, A. Ebert, and J. Meyer (Eds.). Human-Centered Visualization Environments. LNCS Tutorial 4417, Springer, 2007.
R. Spence. Information Visualization. ACM Press/Addison Wesley, New York, ISBN 0-201-59626-1, 2001.
C. Chen. Information Visualization. Springer, London, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2nd Edition, ISBN 1-85233-789-3, 2004.
J.J. Thomas and K.A. Cook (Eds.). Illuminating the Path: The Research and Development Agenda for Visual Analytics. National Visualization and Analytics Center. 2005.