CSC 444 - Data Visualization (Spring 2024)

Mon./Wed. 3:30-4:45pm, Gould-Simpson, Rm 906

Course Syllabus


Course Description

This course will present the fundamentals of data visualization, the art and science of using a computer to generate visual depictions of data. The course will present the foundations of graphic design, perceptual psychology and cognitive science, as well as the algorithmic basis for many for the visualization techniques. While statistical techniques may determine correlations among the data, visualization helps us frame what questions to ask.

The course is targeted at students looking for effective ways of understanding data from their own fields, as well as students interested in learning the fundamentals that will enable them to build and improve the state of the art. The successful student will learn to design, critique and improve data visualizations.

Course Prerequisites or Co-requisites

CSC 335 (Object-Oriented Programming and Design) and CSC 345 (Analysis of Discrete Structures) While students majoring in areas other than CSC are encouraged to enroll, certain topics may prove challenging. Please contact the instructor if you are unsure if you satisfy the prerequisites.

We will write most of our code using the web stack. This means we are targeting modern web browsers, and writing our programs in a combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. If you don’t know these technologies, you will be expected to learn them. CSC 337 (Web Programming) is not a formal pre-requisite for this course, but it might be considered helpful.

Instructor and Contact Information

Course Format and Teaching Methods

Primarily, the format is driven by lectures combined with in-class discussion. Out-of-class activities include readings in relevant textbooks and research papers, programming assignments, take-home exercises, and online discussions.

Course Objectives

The content of the course is split roughly in three distinct aspects of visualization: mechanics, principles, and techniques.

Mechanics: You will learn how the modern web stack enables performant and portable data visualization programs. You will learn to use some of the most popular data visualization libraries, you will learn how they are implemented, and their limitations.

Principles: These principles are based on perceptual psychology and physiology, and how they constraint the algorithms for displaying data effectively and efficiently. They also intertwine with a collection of design principles the design process that includes abstracting, encoding, and interacting with data.

Techniques: You will learn the fundamental algorithms behind many of the techniques created to display data effectively.

Expected Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course, students will have learned to:

(Expected outcomes for Mechanics)

(Expected outcomes for Principles)

(Expected outcomes for Techniques)


Course Content

Required Texts and Readings

Location and Meeting Time

Scheduled Topics

Week Date Monday Date Wednesday
1 Jan 08 -- No Class -- Jan 10 Introduction
2 Jan 15 -- MLK Day -- Jan 17 -- No Class --
3 Jan 22 HTML/CSS/SVG Basics Jan 24 Javascript Basics
4 Jan 29 Javascript + DOM, SVG Jan 31 d3 Intro
5 Feb 05 d3 Joins and Scales [Zoom] Feb 07 Design Principles
6 Feb 12 Perception Feb 14 Data Abstraction
7 Feb 19 Visual Encoding Feb 21 Color
8 Feb 26 Color in d3 Feb 28 Midterm
9 Mar 04 -- Spring Break -- Mar 06 -- Spring Break --
10 Mar 11 Tasks and Interaction Mar 13 Views, Focus+Context
11 Mar 18 Tabular Arrangements Mar 20 Hierarchies/Trees
12 Mar 25 Graphs Mar 27 Cartography
13 Apr 01 Interpolation Apr 03 Isosurfaces
14 Apr 08 Volumetric Data Apr 10 Volume Rendering
15 Apr 15 Transfer Function Design Apr 17 Flow Data
16 Apr 22 Flow Visualization Apr 24 Text and Sets
17 Apr 29 Retrospective May 01 Final Exam Review


Readings assigned for individual lectures can be found on the course homepage.

Scheduled Activities (Assignments and Deliverables)

Programming Assignments (60% of total grade)

This class will have 12 assignments, worth 60% of your total grade (eleven programming assignments and one “pre-assignment”). A00 is a warmup assignment to make sure you are comfortable with the tools we will use and the submission system. The remaining six assignments require you to demonstrate a visualization approach, implemented in d3. Each will have a duration of approximately 1 week from their official posted date to when they are due. A00 is worth 1% while the remaining eleven assignments are worth 5-6% each.

In addition, there will be a final written assignment (A12) as an optional review for the final exam.

Name Topic Post Date Due Date Graded By Percentage
Assignment 00 Survey Jan 10 Jan 24 Jan 31 1
Assignment 01 HTML + SVG Jan 24 Jan 31 Feb 07 5
Assignment 02 Javascript Jan 31 Feb 07 Feb 14 5
Assignment 03 D3 Feb 07 Feb 14 Feb 21 5
Assignment 04 Scales, Axes, Transitions Feb 14 Feb 26 Mar 04 6
Assignment 05 Color Spaces Feb 26 Mar 13 Mar 20 5
Assignment 06 Linked Views, Brushing Mar 13 Mar 20 Mar 27 6
Assignment 07 Parallel Coordinates Mar 20 Mar 27 Apr 03 6
Assignment 08 Treemaps Mar 27 Apr 08 Apr 15 6
Assignment 09 Marching Squares Apr 08 Apr 15 Apr 22 5
Assignment 10 Transfer Functions Apr 15 Apr 22 Apr 29 5
Assignment 11 Flow Visualization Apr 22 Apr 29 May 06 5
Assignment 12 Review (Extra Credit) Apr 24 May 01 May 06 0
Total Assignment Percentage: 60


Midterm Examination (15% of total grade)

A midterm exam will be held in class on Feb. 28, 2024 03:30 PM, and it will cover all material discussed in class prior to the date of the examination.

Final Examination (20% of total grade)

The final examination will be comprehensive. A review will be conducted on the final lecture.

Exam Date/Time/Location: May. 07, 2024 03:30 PM, Gould-Simpson, Rm 906

See also, UA Final Exam Schedule: https://registrar.arizona.edu/faculty-staff-resources/room-class-scheduling/schedule-classes/final-exams

Class Participation (5% of total grade)

This class participation grade is the instructor’s subjective judgement of the student’s contribution to a lively classroom atmosphere. He will consider mainly active, informed participation in classroom discussions, and homework reviews. Obviously, students not attending class are not contributing in this way.

While the instructor does not grade on attendance, nor is attendance required for the course, you are obligated to participate in class to receive credit for this portion of your grade. Participation will also be gauged through virtual mechanisms, such as contributions to the class discussions on Piazza.


Course Policies

Participation Policy

Participating in the course and attending lectures and other course events are vital to the learning process. That said, attendance is not required for lectures.

Nevertheless, failing to stay up-to-date on course content may affect a student’s final course grade. Class participation is an important part of your grade in this course, and it is difficult for a student to participate and the instructor(s) to gauge participation if a student does not attend.

Late Instructor

Your instructor will make every effort to be in class on time, or to inform you of any delay or cancellation. In the unusual event that he should not arrive in class or send word by 15 minutes from the class start time, the class is officially cancelled.

Makeup Policy for Students Who Register Late

Students who register after the first class meeting may make up missed assignments at a deadline set in consultation with the instructor.

Course Communications

We will use official UA email and Piazza as the primary mode of contact. D2L will be used only for the instructor to securely distribute the course calendar, class materials, and grades to students.


Grading Policies

University policy regarding grades and grading systems is available at http://catalog.arizona.edu/policy/grades-and-grading-system.

Grading Scale

Grades will be assigned based on the following scale:

Grading will be based on performance on the set of assignments, the midterm and final exam, and class participation:

Each assignment description will include a specific rubric for how it is graded. Scores on such assignments will be weighted according to the relative point value of each assignment as highlighted above.

Requests for incomplete (I) or withdrawal (W)

Request must be made in accordance with University policies, which are available at http://catalog.arizona.edu/policy/grades-and-grading-system#incomplete and http://catalog.arizona.edu/policy/grades-and-grading-system#Withdrawal, respectively.

Dispute of Grade Policy

After receiving any grade for any submission, a student has 24 hours to respond to the instructor with any disputes in an email with the subject “Grade Dispute”. Such a response must enumerate a specific set of disputed items for the submission and provide evidence that each item was improperly graded. The instructor will then completely regrade the entire submission, including both the disputed items as well as non-disputed items, with the potential for all aspects of the grade to change.

Submission, Lateness, and Revision Policy

All graded work has a fixed due date. Revisions and resubmissions after grading will not be accepted.

Submission for programming assignments will be due on 3:29:59PM of the due date unless otherwise noted. A late submission will receive a penalty of 10% per day for each work day it is late, up to a maximum of 5 days late. This penalty is applied multiplicatively: the instructor will first grade your assignment without penalty and then multiply your earned grade by \((1-0.1N)\) where \(N\) is the number of days late.

Grades for assignment submitted late may not be posted within the same time frame as assignments submitted on time, but the instructor will make their best effort to expedite the grading of late submissions.


University and Department Policies

University-wide Policies

The following UA policies are provided at http://catalog.arizona.edu/syllabus-policies:

Department-wide Syllabus Policies and Resources

The following departmental syllabus policies and resources are provided at https://www.cs.arizona.edu/cs-course-syllabus-policies:

Classroom Behavior Policy

To foster a positive learning environment, students and instructors have a shared responsibility. We want a safe, welcoming, and inclusive environment where all of us feel comfortable with each other and where we can challenge ourselves to succeed. To that end, our focus is on the tasks at hand and not on extraneous activities (e.g., texting, chatting, reading a newspaper, making phone calls, web surfing, etc.).

Students are asked to refrain from disruptive conversations with people sitting around them during lecture.

Some learning styles are best served by using personal electronics, such as laptops and iPads. Nevertheless, these devices can be distracting to other learners. While all students are welcome to use personal electronics in class, they must be used in a way that does not disrupt either the instructor or other students’ experience.

Students observed engaging in disruptive activity will be asked to cease this behavior. Those who continue to disrupt the class will be asked to leave lecture or discussion and may be reported to the Dean of Students.

Notification of Objectionable Materials

The instructor does not intend to include topics and/or course material that are explicit or offensive in any way. The instructor will make every effort to provide advance notice when such materials may potentially be or potentially violate this intent. Please contact the instructor to discuss any content-related concerns, as alternative materials may be available.

Safety on Campus and in the Classroom

For a list of emergency procedures for all types of incidents, please visit the website of the Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT): https://cirt.arizona.edu/case-emergency/overview

Also watch the video available at https://arizona.sabacloud.com/Saba/Web_spf/NA7P1PRD161/common/learningeventdetail/crtfy000000000003560

Subject to Change Statement

Information contained in the course syllabus, other than the grade and absence policy, may be subject to change with advance notice, as deemed appropriate by the instructor.