WARNING: These are notes for myself to give the lecture. They probably have no value to anyone else, but just in case, I make them available.
some people I know, others I don’t…
Outline
today: kindof an administrative day
normally, don’t like to blow a whole lecture on that, but this is an odd class, and I want people to have a good sense of what they are getting into, and to work out some mechanics.
see who comes back next time…
Why
- start with the why are you here question
- why am I here?
interested in visualization – work with others, apply perception, use computer graphics, design and art …
last time: I am starting out, wanted to teach to force me to get to know the basics
this time: I feel like I have a sense of things – want to figure out how to teach it
expose students to the range of topics
ideal: serve many different potential communities, several different levels
be careful what you wish for – I have no clue how to make this class work for everyone
What (brief version)
What “pictures” to make to help communicate or interpret data
Not necessarily how
Who
- Potential users of visualization – have pet problems, data, … (probably not-CS)
- Potential vis practitioners – want to help people with data (probably CS or art)
- Potential vis tool smith – want to make tools to …
- Potential vis researcher – want to improve the science of vis
science of vis. vs. domain science
ways to dice up the world of vis
- infovis vs. sci-vis (how the academic world divides itself)
- explore vs. explain
- infographics vs. …
- sci vs. practice vs. art
- tool users, theoreticians, designers, toolsmiths
- statisticians, analysts, …
Other aspects of Who (for this class)
- CS students vs. non-CS students (level of computing experience in general)
- Undergrads vs. grads (CS-grads vs. others)
how do we make a class work for everybody? (why do we think we can)
What
What pictures should we make – less about how to make them.
(but we need to do something to try to make them)
basics
- human perception
- color
- basic process, key issues and data types – trying to be tool and domain agnostic
syllabus:
- what is vis
- why do we do it
- how do we know it’s good
- go through tentative syllabus
- not enough on the “how” (tools)
- haven’t decided how to integrate exercises
themes:
- think about perception and design
- look at examples and critique
- discuss
- less about me giving monologues – more about guiding you to see
tools?
- which ones?
- bunches that I would like to learn (tableau, R, D3, …)
- the right tools depend on the problem
- pencil and paper –> custom system building
- specialized vis tools
- try to get our hands on some generally useful things (tableau)
How
not sure if we have a TA
Class website ~cs838-1 ~cs638-2 => graphics.cs.wisc.edu/WP/vis12 (also piazza)
Class meetings
- 2 “lectures” a week
- 3rd time slot – scheduled so we have a time
- optional – some complain
Participation
- you are required to show up – let me know if you are not – we will probably keep score
- you are required to participate – really be there (attentive, contribute)
- can contribute in ways other than talking in class (in class is hard, too many people, …)
- my subjective assessment – your job to make me feel like you are learning (not my job to figure it out)
- ask questions! (if you don’t understand something, probably others are in the same boat)
- laptop policy
Online discussion
- Piazza Experiment
- Readings and Assignments
- Lecture Discussions
- Cool Stuff Postings
- Other Observations and postings
- Ask questions!
Fridays
- time to work together to learn more
- sure we can get everyone (help sessions, group work time, …)
- informal – I am not going to prepare extra lectures!
- non-lecture activities (what will they be?)
Readings
- Ware book (online)
- other readings
- protected reader (especially for book chapters – copyright issues)
- Assignments and Projects
- Still to be determined – really want to see who is in the class
- Lots of reading and looking (critique others is important)
- skewed towards academic literature – but pulling away
Try it yourself
- Doesn’t mean programming: pencil and paper, …
- Would like to expose people to appropriate tools
- If you’re a CS student, want you to see how it connects to other stuff you’ve learned
- If you’re not a CS student, want to expose you to some CS
- Work together – teams, working with a domain collaborator, …
Initial things
- Wednesday – first reading example
- Friday – first optional day – no idea what we’ll do, just a chance to talk to people
- Monday – first set of “regular” readings – get different perspectives
- Wednesday – overview readings
- Friday – optional day – discuss what kinds of data people are interested in (problems pot-luck)
- Monday – “why vis” with a set of readings
- Wednesday – data – how to talk about it, and deal with it responsibly
- Friday – optional day – start to talk about what tools we might want to learn