Info+Viz

=Information Visualization= Thursday, April 10

**Topic overview:**
In this class we will explore tools and techniques for representing, exploring, and interpreting large quantities of data with information visualization tools.

Specific topics that we will cover include:
 * Core concepts in data and information visualization
 * In-class exercises with information visualization tools

**Preparation for class:**
Please complete the following readings in preparation for tonight's class: >
 * [Keim01] Keim, Daniel A, Visual Exploration of Large Data Sets, Communications of the ACM, August 2001, Volume 44, No. 8.
 * Available in coursepack
 * Direct download from wiki: [[file:Visual Exploration of Large Data Sets - CACM - 8-01.pdf]]
 * ACM download:
 * http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/390000/381656/p38-keim.pdf?key1=381656&key2=5919874411&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=69273211&CFTOKEN=92042256

Slides:

Links to in-class examples and exercises:
Google earth data overlays and animations:
 * World population density: http://services.google.com/earth/kmz/population_density_n.kmz
 * World oil consumption: http://services.google.com/earth/kmz/world_oil_consumption_n.kmz
 * World energy consumption: http://services.google.com/earth/kmz/energy_consumption_n.kmz
 * Tokyo population density: http://services.google.com/earth/kmz/tokyo_population_n.kmz
 * Path of Hurricane Katrina: http://services.google.com/earth/kmz/hurricane_katrina_n.kmz
 * Airline flights: http://services.google.com/earth/kmz/flight_animation_n.kmz

These animations and overlays are part of a much larger collection available at: http://earth.google.com/ig/directory?pid=earth&synd=earth

Ben Schneiderman's HCI Laboratory at the University of Maryland: http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/

Mashup/overlay of crime statistics across Chicago neighborhoods: [|http://www.chicagocrime.org]

Human explorer applet: http://www.dhpc.adelaide.edu.au/projects/vishuman2/VisibleHuman.html

Spotfire visualization tool demos: http://spotfire.tibco.com/testdrive

Treemaps:
 * Summary of news events/coverage: http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm
 * Smartmoney's MarketMap: http://www.smartmoney.com/marketmap

Please edit only below this line [Bob Monroe]

**Supplementary resources:**
For a very concrete set of suggestions for designing dashboards (many of which are also applicable to report design), please read Chapter 12, How to Design Effective Dashboard Screens, of Eckerson's Performance Dashboards book:
 * [Eck06] Eckerson, Wayne, Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business, John Wiley and Sons, 2006, ISBN: 0-471-72417-3.

Ralph Lengler and Martin Eppler have put together an interesting taxonomy of visualization methods for management. They offer a paper describing the taxonomy and an interactive web page that illustrates the different types of visualizations. The interactive 'periodic table' is fun to explore. The paper dives into deeper details.
 * Ralph Lengler and Martin J. Eppler, Towards a Periodic Table of Visualization Methods for Management
 * Paper: http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.pdf
 * Interactive web site: http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html

For a superb treatment of information visualization, see Edward Tufte's three classic works on the topic, covering the display of numbers, nouns, and verbs respectively. All three of these books are available on reserve at the Hunt Library's reference desk:
 * Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Graphics Press, 2001 (2nd edition)
 * Edward Tufte, Envisioning Information, Graphics Press, 1990
 * Edward Tufte, Visual Explanations, Graphics Press, 1997

Visualization Example submitted by: Maciej Golonka (mgolonka@cmu.edu) Spiral Views AdventureWorks Staff Organizational View AdventureWorks Sales Staff Organizational View

Tree maps: You can create treemaps with Excel, just download Treemapper Add-in from Microsoft.

More examples of Information visualization: The Best Tools for Visualization http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_best_tools_for_visualization.php

submitted by Arlette Toledo