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Introduction
Information VisualizationApril 14, 2008Carsten Görg
Slides adaptedfrom John Stasko
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Instructor / TA
• Carsten Görg, E1.3 [email protected]
• Sascha Parduhn, E1.3 [email protected]
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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
