Overview

For the final project in this class, your task is to choose an area of research in topological analysis for visualization and build a project around it. Some possible options include: (1) implementing an algorithm from a recent (or not so recent) paper, (2) experimenting with and/or comparing algorithms available for download, (3) writing a research report otherwise summarizing or evaluating some aspect of the field.

The project consists of three parts:

  1. A project proposal
  2. Implementation and/or research
  3. A written final project report and presentation

Project propsal

Due in one week after assigned date, you must submit a one page (or less) project proposal outlining what your final project will be. Following that will be a one week “revision” cycle, where you and I will negotiate the expectations for your final project.

Your proposal should, at a minimum, including:

  • A concise description of what you will propose to do, including any references to recent research you will use
  • A list of deliverables, describing the final products and/or software artifacts you will produce.
  • Any description of datasets you will use and where you will obtain them from.

Implementation and Research

Once approved, I expect you to be using the time between now and the final exam period to be implementing and otherwise working on this research project. While no intermediate milestones are required, I am happy to provide informal feedback periodically throughout the month.

While it is not required, I strongly encourage you to consider implementing a new filter in TTK. In particular, it would be exciting to implement a new features/filters that could be added to a future release.

Final Project Report and Presentation

You should prepare a final report describing your experiences in this project. I expect this to be typeset, ideally using LaTeX. You should treat this report as you would a draft of a research paper, in particular you should introduce the problem, describe any related work, describe your methods, report any experimental results, and discuss your findings. While there is no page limit, ideally this should be at least a few pages describing, in detail, the work you prepared for the final project.

On the final exam period, we will present our results. I expect this presentation to be no longer than 15 minutes per student. Again, you should summarize the problem area you investigated, describe what your project worked on, and demonstrate any results you have found.

Submission and Grading

For the project proposal, I expect you to submit your project proposal to your git repository. Please create a directory final and submit your project proposal as a document there. There are no requirements on the format other than keeping the proposal to one page or less.

For the final project submission, I expect you to submit any implementation as well as the written report to the same directory. You may also want to submit your final project slides.

This assignment will count for 20% of your final grade. Extra credit may be assigned for going beyond the specifications of the assignment.