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Introduction

Information VisualizationApril 14, 2008Carsten Görg

Slides adaptedfrom John Stasko

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Instructor / TA

• Carsten Görg, E1.3 R.462goerg@cs.uni-sb.de

• Sascha Parduhn, E1.3 R.414parduhn@cs.uni-sb.de

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Example: Challenger Shuttle

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Example: Challenger Shuttle

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Example: Challenger Shuttle

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Exercise

• Directions

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Data Explosion

• Society is more complex− There simply is more “stuff”

• Computers, internet and web give people access to an incredible amount of data− news, sports, financial, purchases, etc...

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How much data?

• Between 1 and 2 exabytes of unique info produced per year − 1000000000000000000 (1018) bytes− 250 meg for every man, woman and child− Printed documents only .003% of total

Peter Lyman and Hal Varian, 2000Cal-Berkeley, Info Mgmt & Systemswww.sims.berkeley.edu/how-much-info

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Data Overload

• Confound: How to make use of the data− How do we make sense of the data?− How do we harness this data in decision-

making processes?− How do we avoid being overwhelmed?

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The Need is There

http://www.computerworld.com/databasetopics/data/story/0,10801,80243,00.html

In five years, 100 million people will be using an information-visualization tool on a near-daily basis. And products that have visualization as one of their top three features will earn $1 billion per year. -- RamanaRao, founder and chief technology officer, InxightSoftware Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif.

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The Problem

Data

How?

Data Transfer

Web,Books,Papers, Game scores, Scientific data,Biotech,ShoppingPeopleStock/financeNews Vision: 100 MB/s

Ears: <100 b/sTelepathyHaptic/tactileSmellTasteTwo slides courtesy

of Chris North

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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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The Challenge

• Transform the data into information(understanding, insight) thus making it useful to people

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Example

Example courtesyof Chris North

Which state has the highest income?Is there a relationship between income and education?Are there any outliers?

Questions:

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Visualize the Data

Per Capita Income

Colle

ge D

egre

e %

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Even Tougher?

• What if you could only see 1 state’s data at a time? (e.g. Census Bureau’s website)

• What if I read the data to you?

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Illustrates Our Approach

• Provide tools that present data in a way to help people understand and gain insight from it

• Cliches− “Seeing is believing”− “A picture is worth a thousand words”

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Exercise Redux

• An interesting query…

• People work differently

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Exercise Redux

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Visualization

• Often thought of as process of making a graphic or an image

• Really is a cognitive process− Form a mental image of something− Internalize an understanding

• “The purpose of visualization is insight, not pictures”− Insight: discovery, decision making,

explanation

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Main Idea

• Visuals help us think− Provide a frame of reference, a temporary

storage area

• External cognition− Role of external world in thinking and reason− Examples?

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Overview

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Scientific Visualization

• Primarily relates to and represents something physical or geometric

• ExamplesAir flow over a wingStresses on a girderWeather over GermanyTorrents inside a tornado Organs in the human body Molecular bonding

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Information Visualization

• What is “information”?− Items, entities, things which do not have a

direct physical correspondence− Notion of abstractness of the entities is

important too− Examples: sport statistics, stock trends,

connections between criminals, query results, software ...

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Information Visualization

• What is “visualization”?− The use of computer-supported, interactive

visual representations of data to amplify cognition.From [Card, Mackinlay, Shneiderman ‘98]

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Information Visualization

• Components:− Taking items without a direct physical

correspondence and mapping them to a 2-D or 3-D physical space.

− Giving information a visual representation that is useful for analysis and decision-making

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Two Key Attributes

• Scale− Challenge often arises when data sets

become very large

• Interactivity− Want to show multiple different perspectives

on the data

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Domains for Info Vis

• Text• Statistics• Financial/business data• Internet information• Software• ...

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Examples

• Images− Are these static pictures information

visualizations?

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Excel

Get rid ofthose darn 3Dbars!

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USA Today Graphics

Or worse yet…

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Minivan Data

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Bullet Train Schedule

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Atlanta Flight Traffic

Atlanta JournalApril 30, 2000

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In LivingColor

Maxim Magazine, July ‘01

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Unemployment Rates

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Country Music

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2000 Election Ballot

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The Comics

UnderstandingComics byScott McCloud

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Hartsfield Airport

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Power Costs

Average cost per month to use

Wall Street JournalAugust 16, 2001

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London Subway www.thetube.com

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True Geographywww.kottke.org/plus/misc/images/tubegeo.gif

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Easy Walking Lines Addedrodcorp.typepad.com/photos/art_2003/tube_walklines_final_lmfaint.html

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SARS Outbreakwww.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5212a1.htm

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Napolean’s March

size of armydirection

latitudelongitude

temperaturedate

From E. TufteThe Visual Display ofQuantitative Information

Minard graphic

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NYC Weather2220 numbers

Tufte, Vol. 1

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Examples

• Software

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Map of the Marketwww.smartmoney.com/marketmap

Demo

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NY Timeformations

www.skyscraper.org/timeformations

Transparent New York

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Philip Glass Music

www.philipglass.com/glassengine

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Ishkur’s Electr. Music Guidewww.ishkur.com/music/#

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Music Plasma

www.musicplasma.com

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StarTree

www.inxight.com

Hyperbolic tree

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SunBurst www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/ii/sunburst

File browser

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HomeFinder

HCILUniv. Maryland

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Tasks in Info Vis

• Search− Finding a specific piece of information

How many games did the Braves win in 1995?What novels did Ian Fleming author?

• Browsing− Look over or inspect something in a more

casual manner, seek interesting informationLearn about crystallographyWhat has Jane been up to lately?

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Tasks in Info Vis

• Analysis− Comparison-Difference− Outliers, Extremes− Patterns

• Assimilation• Monitoring• Awareness

More to come in a future class…

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Sources Used

• CMS book• Spence book