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SIMS 247 Information Visualization and Presentation

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SIMS 247 Information Visualization and Presentation Prof. Marti Hearst January 25, 2002 What is Information Visualization? visualize: to form a mental image or vision ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: SIMS 247 Information Visualization and Presentation


1
SIMS 247Information Visualization and
Presentation
  • Prof. Marti Hearst
  • January 25, 2002

2
What is Information Visualization?
  • visualize to form a mental image or vision of
  • visualize to imagine or remember as if actually
    seeing.
  • American Heritage dictionary, Concise Oxford
    dictionary

3
What is Information Visualization?
  • Transformation of the symbolic into the
    geometric''
  • (McCormick et al., 1987)
  • ... augmenting natural intelligence in the
    best
  • possible way, ... finding the
    artificial memory that best
  • supports our natural means of
    perception.''
  • (Bertin, 1983)
  • The depiction of information using spatial or
    graphical
  • representations, to facilitate
    comparison, pattern
  • recognition, change detection, and
    other cognitive skills that make use of the
    visual system.

4
Information Visualization
  • Problem
  • HUGE Datasets How to understand them?
  • Solution
  • Take better advantage of human perceptual system
  • Convert information into a graphical
    representation.
  • Issues
  • How to convert abstract information into
    graphical form?
  • Do visualizations do a better job than other
    methods?

5
Visualization Success Stories
6
The Power of Visualization
  • 1. Start out going Southwest on ELLSWORTH AVE
  • Towards BROADWAY by turning right.
  • 2 Turn RIGHT onto BROADWAY.
  • 3. Turn RIGHT onto QUINCY ST.
  • 4. Turn LEFT onto CAMBRIDGE ST.
  • 5. Turn SLIGHT RIGHT onto MASSACHUSETTS AVE.
  • 6. Turn RIGHT onto RUSSELL ST.

7
The Power of Visualization
Line drawing tool by Maneesh Agrawala
http//graphics.stanford.edu/maneesh/
8
Visualization Success Story
Mystery what is causing a cholera epidemic in
London in 1854?
9
Visualization Success Stories
Illustration of John Snows deduction that a
cholera epidemic was caused by a bad water pump,
circa 1854. Horizontal lines indicate location
of deaths.
From Visual Explanations by Edward Tufte,
Graphics Press, 1997
10
Visualization Success Stories
Illustration of John Snows deduction that a
cholera epidemic was caused by a bad water pump,
circa 1854. Horizontal lines indicate location
of deaths.
From Visual Explanations by Edward Tufte,
Graphics Press, 1997
11
Visualization in the Aftermath of 9/11
12
Six Degrees of Mohamed Attahttp//business2.com/a
rticles/mag/0,1640,35253,FF.html
13
US Terrorism Response Org Charthttp//www.cns.mii
s.edu/research/cbw/domestic.htmwmdchart
14
US Terrorism Response Org Charthttp//www.cns.mii
s.edu/research/cbw/domestic.htmwmdchart
15
Flash Animation of Flight Paths
http//www.usatoday.com/graphics/news/gra/gflight
path2/frame.htm
16
Purpose of Information Visualization
  • To help
  • Explore
  • Calculate
  • Communicate
  • Decorate

17
Two Different Primary GoalsTwo Different Types
of Viz
  • Explore/Calculate
  • Analyze
  • Reason about Information
  • Communicate
  • Explain
  • Make Decisions
  • Reason about Information

18
Goals of Information Visualization
  • More specifically, visualization should
  • Make large datasets coherent
  • (Present huge amounts of information compactly)
  • Present information from various viewpoints
  • Present information at several levels of detail
  • (from overviews to fine structure)
  • Support visual comparisons
  • Tell stories about the data

19
This Course
  • Visualization of large, abstract datasets
  • Examples
  • text collections / digital libraries
  • web clickstream data
  • complex information systems
  • your idea goes here

20
Why Visualization?
  • Use the eye for pattern recognition people are
    good at
  • scanning
  • recognizing
  • remembering images
  • Graphical elements facilitate comparisons via
  • length
  • shape
  • orientation
  • texture
  • Animation shows changes across time
  • Important to link with kinds of communication

21
A Key Question
  • How do we
  • Convert abstract information into a visual
    representation
  • While still preserving the underlying meaning
  • And at the same time providing new insight?

22
Key Tools
  • Animation
  • Using size to indicate quantity
  • Using color for distinguishing / selection
  • NOT FOR QUANTITY!!!!
  • Brushing and Linking
  • Providing multiple views

23
The Need for Critical Analysis
  • We see many creative ideas, but they often bomb
    in use
  • The hard part how to apply it judiciously
  • Inventors usually do not accuratly predict how
    their invention will be used
  • This course will emphasize
  • Getting past the coolness factor
  • Examining usability studies

24
Example of finding the right application
  • The Treemap (Johnson Shneiderman)
  • Idea
  • Show a hierarchy as a 2D layout
  • Size on screen indicates relative size of
    underlying objects

25
Treemap applied to File System
26
Treemap Problems
  • Too disorderly
  • What does adjacency mean?
  • Aspect ratios uncontrolled leads to lots of
    skinny boxes that clutter
  • Color not used appropriately
  • In fact, is meaningless here
  • Wrong application
  • Dont need all this to just see the largest files
    in the OS

27
Tennis Match Application
28
File System Application
29
Successful Application of Treemaps
  • Think more about the use
  • Break into meaningful groups
  • Fix these into a useful aspect ratio
  • Use visual properties properly
  • Use color to distinguish meaninfully
  • Only two colors can distinguish one thing from
    another
  • Amount isnt very important
  • Provide excellent interactivity
  • Access to the real data
  • Makes it into a useful tool

30
TreeMaps in Action
http//www.smartmoney.com/maps
http//www.peets.com/tast/11/coffee_selector.asp
31
A Good Use of TreeMaps and Interactivity
www.smartmoney.com/marketmap
32
Treemaps in Peets site
33
Analysis vs. Communication
  • MarketMap use of treemaps allows for
    sophisticated analysis
  • Peets use of treemaps is more for presentation
    and communication
  • This is a key contrast for this course

34
Open Issues
  • Does visualization help?
  • The jury is still out
  • Still supplemental at best for text collections
  • A correlation with spatial ability
  • Learning effects with practice ability on visual
    display begins to equal that of text
  • Does visualization sell?
  • Jury is still out on this one too!
  • This is a hot area! More ideas will appear!

35
What we are not covering
  • Scientific visualization
  • Statistics
  • Cartography (maps)
  • Education
  • Games
  • Computer graphics in general
  • Computational geometry

36
Readings
  • Textbook Card, Mackinlay, and Shneiderman (Eds.)
    Information Visualization Using Vision to Think
  • A course reader (not ready yet)
  • I have a large collection of books that can be
    borrowed.
  • There are many online resources

37
Software
  • We have special access to software
  • Will mainly be on SIMS lab machines
  • Spotfire
  • Table lens (Eureka)
  • Parallel Coordinates
  • Polaris

38
Prototyping Tools
  • Flash or Python TK
  • Good for prototyping animation
  • Jazz toolkit
  • Written in java supports zoom
  • Polaris toolkit
  • Can build up complex systems using XML or tcl
    scripting

39
Class Structure
  • A new topic each week
  • Student run
  • Lots of readings
  • Two or three assignments (50 total)
  • One final project (50)

40
Each Week
  • Two students make a presentation
  • Lasts 1 to 1.5 hours
  • Summary, synthesis, critical analysis of the
    contents of the readings
  • Use the questions shown on a later slide
  • Examples of relevant visualizations found on the
    web, in print, etc
  • Suggestions for how the ideas could be used, or
    why they should not

41
Each Week (cont.)
  • Non-presenting students
  • Read all but one of the assigned papers
  • Write up one page
  • The contents of the writeup will be determined in
    advance by the presenting students
  • The presenting students will provide feedback on
    the other students writeups
  • check, check-minus, check-plus

42
Each Week (cont.)
  • Prof will do one or more of
  • Have a guest speaker
  • Show an interesting video
  • Bring up some interesting topic to discuss
  • Ask other students to show an assignment they did
  • (with advance warning)

43
Key Questions to Ask about a Viz
  • What does it teach/show/elucidate?
  • What is the key contribution?
  • What are some compelling, useful examples?
  • Could they have been done more simply?
  • Have there been usability studies done? What do
    they show?

44
For Next Week
  • (Prof will lecture once more)
  • Do the following readings
  • RIIV Chapter 1. Information Visualization
  • Carlis, J. V., and Konstan, J.K., Interactive
    Visualization of serial periodic data.
  • Bertin, Graphics and Graphic Information
    Processing
  • Kosslyn, S. M., Understanding Charts and Graphs.
  • J. Mackinlay Automating the Design of Graphical
    Presentations of Relational Information
  • Lohse, G.L., Biolsi, K., Walker, N., and Rueter,
    H.H., A Classification of Visual Representations
  • Optional Treemap paper
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