CSC 444 - Data Visualization

Spring 2021

Meets: M/W 3:30-4:45pm, Live Online via Zoom
Instructor: Joshua A. Levine
Office: Online via Zoom, Schedule via Calendly
Office Hours: M 10:00-11:00am, T/R 3:00-4:00pm

TAs:

Md Dilshadur Rahman, dilshadurrahman@email.arizona.edu
Yangzi Lu, yangzilu@email.arizona.edu

TA Office Hours (primarily for issues with grading):

Md Dilshadur Rahman, T 8:30-9:30am, (online via Zoom)
Yangzi Lu, M 11:00-12:00am, (online via Zoom)

Course Syllabus
D2L
Piazza

Course Calendar

(tentative, subject to change)

Week	Date	Monday	Date	Wednesday

1	Jan 11	-- No Class --	Jan 13	Introduction
2	Jan 18	-- MLK Day --	Jan 20	HTML/CSS/SVG Basics
3	Jan 25	Javascript Basics	Jan 27	Javascript + DOM, SVG
4	Feb 01	d3 Intro	Feb 03	d3 Joins and Scales
5	Feb 08	Design Principles	Feb 10	Perception
6	Feb 15	Data Abstraction	Feb 17	Visual Encoding
7	Feb 22	Color	Feb 24	Color in d3
8	Mar 01	Tasks and Interaction	Mar 03	Views, Focus+Context
9	Mar 08	Midterm	Mar 10	-- Reading Day --
10	Mar 15	Tabular Arrangements	Mar 17	Hierarchies/Trees
11	Mar 22	Graphs	Mar 24	Cartography
12	Mar 29	Interpolation	Mar 31	Isosurfaces
13	Apr 05	Volumetric Data	Apr 07	Volume Rendering
14	Apr 12	Transfer Function Design	Apr 14	Flow Data
15	Apr 19	Flow Visualization	Apr 21	-- Reading Day --
16	Apr 26	Uncertainty	Apr 28	Text and Sets
17	May 03	Retrospective	May 05	Final Exam Review

Final Exam: Tues., May 11, 3:30-5:30pm, Live Online via Zoom
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 Spring 2021 Undergraduate Dates and Deadlines for complete details.

Lecture 01 - Introduction

Date: January 13, 2021

Required Reading:

Lecture 02 - HTML/CSS/SVG Basics

Date: January 20, 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-Spring2021/l02_examples` to download

Lecture 03 - Javascript Basics

Date: January 25, 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-Spring2021/l03_examples` to download

Lecture 04 - Javascript + DOM, SVG

Date: January 27, 2021

Required Reading:

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

Lecture 05 - d3 Intro

Date: February 01, 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-Spring2021/l05_examples` to download

Lecture 06 - d3 Joins and Scales

Date: February 03, 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-Spring2021/l06_examples` to download

Lecture 07 - Design Principles

Date: February 08, 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: February 10, 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: February 15, 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: February 17, 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 Appliation 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: February 22, 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: February 24, 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-Spring2021/l12_examples` to download

Lecture 13 - Tasks and Interaction

Date: March 01, 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: March 03, 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: March 15, 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.

Lecture 17 - Hierarchies/Trees

Date: March 17, 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: March 22, 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: March 24, 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: March 29, 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-Spring2021/l20_examples` to download

Lecture 21 - Isosurfaces

Date: March 31, 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 - Volumetric Data

Date: April 05, 2021

Required Reading:

Optional Reading:

Telea, Chapter 2, 3.3-3.5 (Note: the textbook is available electronically through the UA Library for those on campus)

Lecture 23 - Volume Rendering

Date: April 07, 2021

Required Reading:

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

Optional Reading:

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 24 - Transfer Function Design

Date: April 12, 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 25 - Flow Data

Date: April 14, 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)

Lecture 26 - Flow Visualization

Date: April 19, 2021

Required Reading:

Optional Reading:

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 27 - Uncertainty

Date: April 26, 2021

Required Reading:

Optional Reading:

Visualization of Uncertainty without a Mean. Kristin Potter, Samuel Gerber, Erik W. Anderson. IEEE CG&A. 33(1), pp.75-79, 2013.
Statistically Quantitative Volume Visualization. Joe Michael Kniss, Robert L. Van Uitert Jr., Abraham Stephens, Guo-Shi Li, Tolga Tasdizen, Charles D. Hansen. IEEE Visualization, pp. 287-294, 2005.
Noodles: A Tool for Visualization of Numerical Weather Model Ensemble Uncertainty. Jibonananda Sanyal, Song Zhang, Jamie Dyer, Andrew Mercer, Philip Amburn, and Robert J. Moorhead. IEEE TVCG 16(6), 2010.
Result-Driven Exploration of Simulation Parameter Spaces for Visual Effects Design. Stefan Bruckner, Torsten Möller IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 16(6):1467-1475, October 2010.
Vismon: Facilitating Analysis of Trade-Offs, Uncertainty, and Sensitivity In Fisheries Management Decision Making. Maryam Booshehrian, Torsten Möller, Randall M. Peterman, and Tamara Munzner. Computer Graphics Forum, 31(3):1235-1244, 2012.

Lecture 28 - Text and Sets

Date: April 28, 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 29 - Retrospective

Date: May 03, 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.

Lecture 30 - Final Exam Review

Date: May 05, 2021

Required Reading:

None

A01 - Survey
Assigned: Jan 13
Due: Jan 25 03:29:59 PM
Graded: Jan 31

A02 - HTML + SVG
Assigned: Jan 25
Due: Feb 01 03:29:59 PM
Graded: Feb 07

A03 - Javascript
Assigned: Feb 01
Due: Feb 08 03:29:59 PM
Graded: Feb 14

A04 - D3
Assigned: Feb 08
Due: Feb 15 03:29:59 PM
Graded: Feb 21

A05 - Scales, Axes, Transitions
Assigned: Feb 15
Due: Feb 24 03:29:59 PM
Graded: Mar 02

A06 - Color Spaces
Assigned: Feb 24
Due: Mar 03 03:29:59 PM
Graded: Mar 09

A07 - Linked Views, Brushing
Assigned: Mar 03
Due: Mar 15 03:29:59 PM
Graded: Mar 21

A08 - Parallel Coordinates
Assigned: Mar 15
Due: Mar 22 03:29:59 PM
Graded: Mar 28

A09 - Treemaps
Assigned: Mar 22
Due: Mar 31 03:29:59 PM
Graded: Apr 06

A10 - Marching Squares
Assigned: Mar 31
Due: Apr 12 03:29:59 PM
Graded: Apr 18

A11 - Transfer Functions
Assigned: Apr 12
Due: Apr 19 03:29:59 PM
Graded: Apr 25

A12 - Flow Visualization
Assigned: Apr 19
Due: Apr 28 03:29:59 PM
Graded: May 04

A13 - Review (Extra Credit)
Assigned: Apr 28
Due: May 05 03:29:59 PM
Graded: May 10