CSC 444 - Data Visualization

Fall 2021

Meets: T/R 9:30-10:45am, Spch & Hearing Sci, Rm 205
Instructor: Joshua A. Levine
Office: Online via Zoom, Schedule via Calendly
Office Hours: M 3:30-4:30pm, T 3:00-4:00pm

TAs:

Zhenge Zhao, zhengezhao@email.arizona.edu
Deep Mehta, deepmehta@email.arizona.edu

TA Office Hours (primarily for issues with grading):

Zhenge Zhao, F 11:00am-12:00pm, (online via Zoom)
Deep Mehta, R 11:30am-12:30pm, (online via Zoom)

Course Syllabus
D2L
Piazza

Course Calendar

(tentative, subject to change)

Week	Date	Tuesday	Date	Thursday

1	Aug 24	Introduction	Aug 26	HTML/CSS/SVG Basics
2	Aug 31	Javascript Basics	Sep 02	Javascript + DOM, SVG
3	Sep 07	d3 Intro	Sep 09	d3 Joins and Scales
4	Sep 14	Design Principles	Sep 16	Perception
5	Sep 21	Data Abstraction	Sep 23	Visual Encoding
6	Sep 28	Color	Sep 30	Color in d3
7	Oct 05	Tasks and Interaction	Oct 07	Views, Focus+Context
8	Oct 12	Midterm	Oct 14	Tabular Arrangements
9	Oct 19	Hierarchies/Trees	Oct 21	Graphs
10	Oct 26	-- IEEE VIS 2021 --	Oct 28	-- IEEE VIS 2021 --
11	Nov 02	Cartography	Nov 04	Interpolation
12	Nov 09	Isosurfaces	Nov 11	-- Veterans Day --
13	Nov 16	Volume Rendering	Nov 18	Transfer Function Design
14	Nov 23	Flow Visualization	Nov 25	-- Thanksgiving --
15	Nov 30	Text and Sets	Dec 02	Retrospective
16	Dec 07	Final Exam Review	Dec 09	-- Reading Day --

Final Exam: Sun., Dec 12 8:00am - Tues., Dec 14, 10:00am, Gradescope
Highlighted dates have an assignment due by the start of class.

Boxed dates correspond to the nearest class day to the deadlines for dropping (without a W) and withdrawing for this semester. See Fall 2021 Undergraduate Dates and Deadlines for complete details.

Link to Google drive folder with all lecture slides

Lecture 01 - Introduction

Date: August 24, 2021

Required Reading:

Optional Reading:

Hans Rosling, TED 2006
A Tour through the Visualization Zoo., Jeffrey Heer, Michael Bostock, Vadim Ogievetsky. Communications of the ACM, 53(6) pp. 59-67, Jun 2010.
A Tour of Visualizations, Good, Bad, and Ugly Carlos Scheidegger (CSC 444 Fall 2019).

Lecture 02 - HTML/CSS/SVG Basics

Date: August 26, 2021

Required Reading:

The Basics of the Web Stack - Carlos Scheidegger (CSC 444 Fall 2019).
Murray, Chapter 3, pgs. 17-36, 52-62 (all pages except for the section on Javasript) (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Optional Reading:

Example Code from Class - use `git clone https://github.com/UA-CSC444-Fall2021/l02_examples` to download

Lecture 03 - Javascript Basics

Date: August 31, 2021

Required Reading:

Javascript - Carlos Scheidegger (CSC 444 Fall 2019).
Murray, Chapter 3, pgs. 36-52 (the remaining section on Javascript) (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Optional Reading:

Speaking JavaScript: An In-Depth Guide for Programmers - Chapter 1. Basic JavaScript (note, most chapters of this book cover Javascript in great detail, but the focus of the book is ES5)
Eloquent JavaScript, 3rd Edition: A Modern Introduction to Programming (note, this is included as a reference. The book is a great way to learn ES6, but you need not read it all at once)
Advice on Learning Javascript - Michael Gleicher (Wisconsin). Other than the textbook links, check out the video lectures at the bottom of this page for more repetition on the basics of the language, closures, and more
Lecture 3 Activities - Carlos Scheidegger (CSC 444 Fall 2019).
Example Code from Class - use `git clone https://github.com/UA-CSC444-Fall2021/l03_examples` to download

Lecture 04 - Javascript + DOM, SVG

Date: September 02, 2021

Required Reading:

DOM Manipulation - Carlos Scheidegger (CSC 444 Fall 2019).

Optional Reading:

Example Code from Class - use `git clone https://github.com/UA-CSC444-Fall2021/l04_examples` to download

Lecture 05 - d3 Intro

Date: September 07, 2021

Required Reading:

Murray, Chapter 5,6 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)
Welcome to d3 - Carlos Scheidegger (CSC 444 Fall 2019).

Optional Reading:

Bostock, Three Little Circles
Bostock, Thinking with Joins
Bostock, How Selections Work
Example Code from Class - use `git clone https://github.com/UA-CSC444-Fall2021/l05_examples` to download

Lecture 06 - d3 Joins and Scales

Date: September 09, 2021

Required Reading:

Murray, Chapter 7 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)
d3 Scales - Carlos Scheidegger (CSC 444 Fall 2019).

Optional Reading:

d3 Drills - Carlos Scheidegger (CSC 444 Fall 2019).
Example Code from Class - use `git clone https://github.com/UA-CSC444-Fall2021/l06_examples` to download

Lecture 07 - Design Principles

Date: September 14, 2021

Required Reading:

Munzner, Chapter 1, 6.10 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Optional Reading:

99% Details. Podcast from 99% Invisible, Sep 2010.
Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2001.

Lecture 08 - Perception

Date: September 16, 2021

Required Reading:

Ware, Information Visualization, Chapter 3. Note that this book is free to access on campus (the above link will not work off campus).
Attention and Visual Memory in Visualization and Computer Graphics. Christopher G. Healey, James T. Enns. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 18(7): 1170-1188 (2012)

Optional Reading:

Gestalt principles (Part 1) Bang Wong. Nature Methods 7, pp. 863, Nov 2010.
Gestalt principles (Part 2) Bang Wong. Nature Methods 7, pp. 941, Dec 2010.

Lecture 09 - Data Abstraction

Date: September 21, 2021

Required Reading:

Munzner, Chapter 2 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Optional Reading:

On the Theory of Scales of Measurement. S. S. Stevens. Science, 103(2684), pp. 677-680, June 1946.

Lecture 10 - Visual Encoding

Date: September 23, 2021

Required Reading:

Munzner, Chapter 5, 6.3-6.6 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Optional Reading:

Graphical Perception: Theory, Experimentation, and Application to the Development of Graphical Methods. William S. Cleveland and Robert McGill, Journal of the American statistical association 79, no. 387 (1984): 531-554.
Automating the Design of Graphical Presentations of Relational Information. Jock Mackinlay. ACM TOG 5(2), 1986.

Lecture 11 - Color

Date: September 28, 2021

Required Reading:

Munzner, Chapter 10.1-10.3, 6.9 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Optional Reading:

Ware, Information Visualization, Chapter 4. Note that this book is free to access on campus (the above link will not work off campus).
Color (listen) - Radiolab
Representing Colors as Three Numbers. Maureen Stone, Computer Graphics and Applications, 25(4), July 2005, pp. 78-85.
Lab and HCL Color Spaces - Mike Bostock.
Is Your Red The Same as My Red? (watch) - Vsauce.
http://www.brucelindbloom.com Bruce Lindbloom. Useful color information, studies, and Files.

Lecture 12 - Color in d3

Date: September 30, 2021

Required Reading:

Color Use Guidelines for Mapping and Visualization. Cynthia A. Brewer. Proceedings of the Section on Statistical Graphics, American Statistical Association, Alexandria VA. pp. 55-60. 1999.
See also: Colorbrewer: Color Advice for Maps

Optional Reading:

Rainbow Color Map (Still) Considered Harmful. D. Borland and R. Taylor. Computer Graphics and Applications, 27(2), pp. 14-17, 2007.
d3-scale-chromatic
D3 Scales Playground - Carlos Scheidegger.
Example Code from Class - use `git clone https://github.com/UA-CSC444-Fall2021/l12_examples` to download

Lecture 13 - Tasks and Interaction

Date: October 05, 2021

Required Reading:

Munzner, Chapter 3, 6.8, 11 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Optional Reading:

Smooth and Efficient Zooming and Panning. Jack J. van Wijk and Wim A.A. Nuij, Proc. InfoVis 2003, p. 15-22
Animated Transitions in Statistical Data Graphics. Jeffrey Heer and George G. Robertson. IEEE TVCG (Proc. InfoVis 2007) 13(6): 1240-1247, 2007.

Lecture 14 - Views, Focus+Context

Date: October 07, 2021

Required Reading:

Munzner, Chapter 12, 6.7, 14 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)
A review of overview+detail, zooming, and focus+context interfaces. Andy Cockburn, Amy Karlson, and Benjamin B. Bederson. ACM Computing Surveys 41(1), 2008.

Optional Reading:

The visual design and control of the trellis display. R. Becker, W. Cleveland, M. Shyu. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 5(2), 1996.
Toolglass and magic lenses: the see-through interface. Eric A. Bier, Maureen C. Stone, Ken Pier, William Buxton, and Tony D. DeRose, Proc. SIGGRAPH, pp. 73-76, 1993.
Interactive Coordinated Multiple-View Visualization of Biomechanical Motion Data. Daniel F. Keefe, Marcus Ewert, William Ribarsky, Remco Chang. IEEE Trans. Visualization and Computer Graphics (Proc. Vis 2009), 15(6):1383-1390, 2009.

Lecture 16 - Tabular Arrangements

Date: October 14, 2021

Required Reading:

Munzner, Chapter 7, 15.3-15.5 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Optional Reading:

Multi-Scale Banking to 45 Degrees. Jeffrey Heer, Maneesh Agrawala. Proc. InfoVis 2006, published as IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), 12(5), Sep/Oct 2006, pages 701-708.
LineUp: Visual Analysis of Multi-Attribute Rankings. Samuel Gratzl, Alexander Lex, Nils Gehlenborg, Hanspeter Pfister and Marc Streit. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (InfoVis), 2013.
Stacked Graphs - Geometry & Aesthetics. Lee Byron, Martin Wattenberg. Proceedings of InfoVis 2008.
Hierarchical Parallel Coordinates for Exploration of Large Datasets. Ying-Huey Fua, Matthew O. Ward, and Elke A. Rundensteiner. IEEE Visualization 1999.
Clone of Nutrient Explorer. Original from http://bl.ocks.org/syntagmatic/3150059

Lecture 17 - Hierarchies/Trees

Date: October 19, 2021

Required Reading:

Munzner, Chapter 9 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)
Treevis.net: A Tree Visualization Reference. Hans-Jorg Schulz, IEEE CG&A, 31(6), pp. 11-15, Nov.-Dec. 2011.
See also: A Visual Bibliography of Tree Visualization. InfoVis 2010 Best Poster.

Optional Reading:

Cushion Treemaps: visualization of hierarchical information. Jack J. van Wijk and Huub van de Wetering, Proc InfoVis 1999, pp 73-78.
Example Code from Class - use `git clone https://github.com/UA-CSC444-Spring2021/l17_examples` to download

Lecture 18 - Graphs

Date: October 21, 2021

Required Reading:

Optional Reading:

A technique for drawing directed graphs. Emden R. Gansner, Eleftherios Koutsofios, Stephen C. North, and Kiem-Phong Vo, IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering 19(3), 214-230, 1993.
Hierarchical Edge Bundles: Visualization of Adjacency Relations in Hierarchical Data. Danny Holten, Proc InfoVis 06, published as IEEE TVCG 12(5), p 741-748, 2006.
Murray, Chapter 11 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Lecture 19 - Cartography

Date: November 02, 2021

Required Reading:

Munzner, Chapter 8.1-8.3 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Optional Reading:

Unfolding the Earth: Myriahedral Projections. Jarke J. van Wijk, The Cartographic Journal, Vol. 45, No. 1, pp.32-42, February 2008. See also Additional Media.
Bostock, Command-Line Cartography
Murray, Chapter 12 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Lecture 20 - Interpolation

Date: November 04, 2021

Required Reading:

Optional Reading:

d3-interpolate
Telea, Chapter 3.1-3.2 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)
Human Factors in Visualization Research. Melanie Tory, Torsten Möller. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 10(1): 72-84, 2004.
Example Code from Class - use `git clone https://github.com/UA-CSC444-Fall2021/l20_examples` to download

Lecture 21 - Isosurfaces

Date: November 09, 2021

Required Reading:

Munzner, Chapter 8.4.1 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Optional Reading:

Marching Cubes: A High Resolution 3D Surface Construction Algorithm. William E. Lorensen and Harvey E. Cline, Computer Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 87), 21 (4), pp. 163-169 (July 1987, Anaheim, California).
Data structures for soft objects. Geoff Wyvill, Craig McPheeters, Brian Wyvill. The Visual Computer 2(4): 227-234 (1986).
The Asymptotic Decider: Resolving the Ambiguity in Marching Cubes. Gregory M. Nielson, Bernd Hamann. IEEE Visualization 1991: 83-93
A Near Optimal Isosurface Extraction Algorithm Using the Span Space. Yarden Livnat, Han-Wei Shen, Christopher R. Johnson. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 2(1): 73-84 (1996)

Lecture 22 - Volume Rendering

Date: November 16, 2021

Required Reading:

Munzner, Chapter 8.4.2 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Optional Reading:

Telea, Chapter 2, 3.3-3.5 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)
Display of Surfaces from Volume Data. Marc Levoy, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 8(3), 29-37, 1988.
You may also want to read the errata.
Real-Time Volume Graphics. Klaus Engel, Markus Hadwiger, Joe Kniss, Aaron Lefohn, Christof Rezk-Salama and Daniel Weiskopf. In ACM Siggraph 2004, Course 28, 2004.
While I recommend the book, you can Focus on Chapters 1, 3 and Sections III and VII in the coursenotes their SIGGRAPH 2004 course, as well as
the slides from newer coursenotes from EG 2006, specifically parts 1,3,5-7.

Lecture 23 - Transfer Function Design

Date: November 18, 2021

Required Reading:

The Transfer Function Bake-Off. Hanspeter Pfister, William E. Lorensen, Chandrajit L. Bajaj, Gordon L. Kindlmann, William J. Schroeder, Lisa Sobierajski Avila, Ken Martin, Raghu Machiraju, Jinho Lee. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 21(3): 16-22 (2001).

Optional Reading:

Multidimensional Transfer Functions for Interactive Volume Rendering. Joe Kniss, Gordon L. Kindlmann, Charles D. Hansen IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 8(3): 270-285 (2002).
The original paper was Best Paper, Vis 2001: Interactive Volume Rendering Using Multi-Dimensional Transfer Functions and Direct Manipulation Widgets. Joe Kniss, Gordon L. Kindlmann, Charles D. Hansen. IEEE Visualization, pp. 255-262, 2001.

Lecture 24 - Flow Visualization

Date: November 23, 2021

Required Reading:

Munzner, Chapter 8.5 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Optional Reading:

Flow Visualization. Stephen Kline (National Committee for Fluid Mechanics Films). 35 min running time.
Check out the Film Notes as well.
Integrating ODEs Numerically. Carlos Scheidegger (CSC 444 Fall 2019)
Comparing 2D Vector Field Visualization Methods: A User Study. David H. Laidlaw, Robert M. Kirby, Cullen D. Jackson, J. Scott Davidson, Timothy S. Miller, Marco da Silva, William H. Warren, Michael J. Tarr. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 11(1): 59-70 (2005).
Time and Streak Surfaces for Flow Visualization in Large Time-Varying Data Sets. Harinarayan Krishnan, Christoph Garth, Kenneth I. Joy. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 15(6): 1267-1274 (2009)

Lecture 25 - Text and Sets

Date: November 30, 2021

Required Reading:

Optional Reading:

Jigsaw: Supporting Investigative Analysis through Interactive Visualization. John T. Stasko, Carsten Görg, Zhicheng Liu. Information Visualization 7(2): 118-132 (2008).
See also, Additional Media.
UpSet: Visualization of Intersecting Sets. Alexander Lex, Nils Gehlenborg, Hendrik Strobelt, Romain Vuillemot, Hanspeter Pfister. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 20(12): 1983-1992 (2014)
Bubble Sets: Revealing Set Relations with Isocontours over Existing Visualizations. Christopher Collins, Gerald Penn, M. Sheelagh T. Carpendale. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 15(6): 1009-1016 (2009)

Lecture 26 - Retrospective

Date: December 02, 2021

Required Reading:

Let’s Do Virtuous Data Visualization. Michael Correll (medium)

Optional Reading:

After the storm: Considerations for information visualization. M. Pauline Baker and Colleen Bushell. IEEE CG&A 15(3): 12-15, 1995.
Ethical Dimensions of Visualization Research. Michael Correll. ACM CHI, pp. 1-13. 2019.
How Deceptive are Deceptive Visualizations?: An Empirical Analysis of Common Distortion Techniques. Anshul Vikram Pandey, Katharina Rall, Margaret L. Satterthwaite, Oded Nov, Enrico Bertini. ACM CHI, pp. 1469-1478, 2015.

A01 - Survey
Assigned: Aug 24
Due: Aug 31 09:29:59 AM
Graded: Sep 06

A02 - HTML + SVG
Assigned: Aug 31
Due: Sep 07 09:29:59 AM
Graded: Sep 13

A03 - Javascript
Assigned: Sep 07
Due: Sep 14 09:29:59 AM
Graded: Sep 20

A04 - D3
Assigned: Sep 14
Due: Sep 21 09:29:59 AM
Graded: Sep 27

A05 - Scales, Axes, Transitions
Assigned: Sep 21
Due: Sep 30 09:29:59 AM
Graded: Oct 06

A06 - Color Spaces
Assigned: Sep 30
Due: Oct 07 09:29:59 AM
Graded: Oct 13

A07 - Linked Views, Brushing
Assigned: Oct 07
Due: Oct 19 09:29:59 AM
Graded: Oct 25

A08 - Parallel Coordinates
Assigned: Oct 19
Due: Oct 28 09:29:59 AM
Graded: Nov 03

A09 - IEEE VIS
Assigned: Oct 26
Due: Nov 04 09:29:59 AM
Graded: Nov 10

A10 - Treemaps
Assigned: Oct 28
Due: Nov 09 09:29:59 AM
Graded: Nov 15

A11 - Marching Squares
Assigned: Nov 09
Due: Nov 18 09:29:59 AM
Graded: Nov 24

A12 - Transfer Functions
Assigned: Nov 18
Due: Nov 30 09:29:59 AM
Graded: Dec 06

A13 - Review (Extra Credit)
Assigned: Nov 30
Due: Dec 07 09:29:59 AM
Graded: Dec 13