One person sent me a P2 self evaluation, which reminded me that I didn’t give you instructions for them.

I will not look at self-evaluations until after we have graded the project (after reading it, we may adjust your grade if you were at a borderline). So, you can turn it in until Wednesday, 5/13 at 5pm.

Using the questions from P1 is fine. They are:

1. How happy are you with the outcome?
2. What went right/wrong in your project? What would you do the same/different?
3. What will you do the same/differently on the next project?
4. What advice would you give to someone else proposing to do this project in the future?
5. The cliché is to ask about what you learned from the experience. This is good self-reflection practice, but may already be described above.

However, #3 doesn’t make as much sense. Instead, I would prefer if you consider the following questions:

1. How happy are you with the outcome?
2. What went right/wrong in your project? What would you do the same/different?
3. What advice would you give to someone else proposing to do this project in the future?
4. If you worked in a group, how did you split the workload?
5. What could we have done to better connect the class content to projects? What could we (the course staff) have done to have made this project a better experience for you (or students in general)?
6. The cliché is to ask about what you learned from the experience. This is good self-reflection practice, but may already be described above.

In general, we are really interested in getting feedback on the course. It’s still a work in progress. So if you have thoughts on what we could do better or differently (or what you think works and shouldn’t be changed), please let us know. If you want to do it anonymously, please put a printed page in my mailbox.

On Friday, May 4, the “handin plan” is due. The project page says little more than “expect instructions.” Well, this is it.

There are two goals here:

1. We need to predict what you will be delivering to us, so that we can figure out how you should transmit it to us.
2. We want to get an idea of what to expect, so we can have the opportunity to catch problems where projects aren’t going to meet expectations early.

So, on Friday May 4th (preferably before noon), please send the instructor and TA a note saying:

1. What you expect to have to turn in. Will it just be a big PDF? Will it be a ZIP with code and an excutable? Is there a lot of data? How big? (it’s not practical for you to deliver more than a few MB by email). Do you have some mechanism for putting it on the web?
2. Will you have a demo to run? If so, will you be able to put it on the web so we can try it? Even if we can try it, we will probably want to schedule a time to look at it and discuss it with you. (we want to get a sense of how many demos to schedule).
3. How is the project progressing? Give us a sense of where you’ve gotten to and where you expect to get to. (a few sentences – maybe 2 paragraphs – just enough so we get a sense).

As far as when things are due: according to University policy, things must be due the last day of class. However, we will have an “email blackout” between Wednesday May 9th at noon and Monday, May 14th at 10am. Anything sent during this time will be considered as handed in at May 9th, but won’t be looked at until the 14th. In fact, we’d prefer that you didn’t send us things until Sunday the 13th (since we’ll both be traveling).

So, the deadline for us to receive your project materials is really Monday, May 14th at 10am. This is a pretty firm deadline, since we need to grade it quickly.

You will at least need to send us your written report by email (if it’s a small enough PDF, otherwise send a web link) by this time, and have some arrangement for us to get other files.

One last reading. I was tempted to skip it to let you focus on projects, but I think it’s a really important topic.

One Monday, May 7th, we’ll talk about the perception of 3D. We might get to talking about visualizing 3D phenomena, but I am not sure if we’ll get that far. The Piazza posting is optional. But I am curious as to which readings you looked at, and what you think of them.

The readings are:

• Chapter 5 of Visual Thinking for Design (the textbook).
• James Todd. The Visual Perception of 3D Shape. Trends in Cognitive Science. 2004. A nice, compact article.

These are semi-optional – I’d like you to look at them and get a sense. Skim the motivations, look at the pictures.

• Amy and Bruce Gooch. Using Non-Photorealistic Rendering to Communicate Shape. SIGGRAPH ‘99 course notes here. (this is better than the original, but seminal paper. you don’t need to read it in detail – just skim through the motivation and look at the pictures.
• Cipriano and Gleicher. Molecular Surface Abstraction.
• Look at the light collages web page (but it links to the initial version of the paper – if you want to read more, check below).

I really wanted to add a few things that show how to effectively use the cues in visualization. But this is just so huge and broad that I don’t know where to start. I’ll mention some of my favorites (some of these are seminal pieces, where there is lots of follow on. some of these are:

• Lee, et al. Geometry-Dependent Lighting. IEEE Trans of Vis and Comp Graphics. (ieee official version). Note: this paper is the extended version of the original Light Collages paper.
• SIGGRAPH 2008 Course notes “Line Drawings from 3D Models” http://www.cs.princeton.edu/gfx/proj/sg08lines/ – These are nice slides that summarize the topic very well.
• DeCarlo, et al. Suggestive Contours for Conveying Shape. Proc. SIGGRAPH 2003. (pdf) (project). The 2003 paper is really seminal, the web page lists some of the follow-ons.
• Linedemann and Ropinski.  About the Influence of Illumination Models on Image Comprehension in Direct Volume Rendering. IEEE Vis 2011. (page here)

Overall, everyone who submitted something did at least a good job.

There was variance. Some are more insightful than others. Some more directly addressed the question (how does the research utilize class concepts), while others critiqued the tool itself. Still others decided to praise the tool (sometimes in ways that didn’t necessarily add). I will account for at least some of the variance by the way the question was phrased.

But, Almost all the things were (at least) good. There were a few (4) that were just OK (and one that might have been a little less than OK). But since I am not sure I can objectively qualify why things fell into these different bins, I think its more fair just to say that those who didn’t do “good” legitimately had different ideas about the assignment.

So, everyone who turned it in gets “100%.” We’ll count this as a “written participation” – but emphasize it more than the individual Piazza assignments.

To the person who did a visual critique of the paper: you are totally right! I can’t tell you how hard it was to cram everything in to 10 pages. And it really does show (the paper is way too dense).

(note: I have assigned grades as of noon, 4/28/2012 – but I have not mailed them to you yet)

Project Scoring Rubric:

N=5 or 6 (weeks)

1. 1/N – did you do all of the pieces (most people get 100%)
2. 1/N – proposal & revision (lenient scoring – most people get 100%)
3. 1/N – final material quality (clarity, completeness, … – generous scoring)
4. (N-3)/N – content quality

Note: the content quality mixes in to other parts as well. The content expectations are higher for longer projects.

Note: for 838, the "meets expectations" level for 2&3 gets you an AB. #1 is basically a freebie A. For 638, the 1&2 meets expectations level gets an A (and 3 gets an AB). We are generous on these parts so we can be honest/harsh on #4.

In terms of the 5/6 week thing: note that if you took the extra week, your actual content was more important to your grade (makes sense, since you had an extra week for that, but the same amount of time for the mechanics). Since, generally, scores are higher for 1-3 than 4, this works out.

#1 All Parts:

We counting up all the different parts. Most people turned in everything (including summary)

• initial contact/reply (a few people didn’t meet the letter of the law, was only counted against you if the next two things were problematic
• one person missed phase 2, but arguably thought their initial proposal was OK
• one person effectively missed phase 1 & 2
• everyone had the summary (but 1 was extremely late)
• 3 people were missing self-evals (note: I will not read these until after grades are assigned)

#2 Proposal

838:
    Exemplary = A (very few)
    Good enough = AB
    Minimally Acceptable or Problematic = B (or less)
638:
    Good Enough = A
    Minimally Acceptable = AB
    Problematic = B
   
note: some i gave +/- to, which basically says it might be better/worse than the grade and that should be considered in border cases

#3 Materials

This attempts to assess the quality of the write-up, how nicely things were handed in and presented, … – independently of how good the actual content was. It’s trying to be more about the form, although this is admittedly hard to separate.

638:
    Good (or better than good): A
    Good enough / acceptable : AB
    Problematic: B (or worse)
838:
    Very Good: A
    Acceptable / Good Enough: AB
    Problematic: B (or worse)

#4 Content

Hopefully, the detailed comments (from the P1 feedback) are sufficient to let you know why I gave it the score that I did. Remember, things are scored against the expectations set in the proposal (also described in the initial feedback).

Initial P1 Feedback:

The above scores were built on the P1 feedback.

Please be aware that these may come across as negative – I often was finding flaws, rather than praising the good parts on this pass. Also, in terms of grades, a portion of the grade comes from correctly following the process, and most people do well on that aspect.

On Monday, April 30, we’ll talk about some of the basic elements of visual design.

To prepare for this, please read:

• Some excerpts from The Non-Designer’s Design Book, by Robin Williams (here)
• Some excepts from Design Basics Index, by Jim Krause (here)

And, (optionally) look through this excerpt from a typography book that explores design principles as they apply to typography.

• Logo, Font & Lettering Bible, by Leslie Carbarga (here)

After the lecture on Monday (but before Wednesday, May 2nd), on the Piazza page, please consider:

Now that you’ve learned about some of the heuristics used by designers to
create and to evaluate designs, how useful do you think these might be
when applied to visualization?

Do you see any parallels to what we’ve already discussed in class?
Does reading about these from the point of view of a designer change
the way that you think about the things that we’ve covered?

I have initial feedback for all of the project 1. It isn’t totally “graded” but there is at least some commentary that may help you in planning project 2. (my not-so-good excuse for the delay is that I wanted to focus on giving feedback for P2)

I will warn people that on the first pass, I am often noting what is wrong, not necessarily counting up all that’s right. (it’s kind of like grading a test where you put an X on the 1 that’s wrong, rather than 99 checkmarks on the one that’s correct).

Today, the revised and approved project 2 proposals were due. I have gotten few of them so far (and have not responded to any of them). I’ll give people the excuse that you were waiting for P1 feedback. So, everyone can have an extension until Monday. However, remember that this is for having a project proposal approved: just sending it to us at the last minute is not an opportunity for us to iterate with you.

I am noticing from the final results of P1, that more careful scrutiny at the revised proposal and 3rd week update phase may have caught problems. So I strongly encourage people to give us description of what you are doing and where things are going (as much as possible): the more we get from you, the more we may be able to help steer you.

In a graduate class, I often try to spend some time on the skills a student should build. One of the biggest is how to give a presentation. This is closely connected to visualization.

There are a few caveats here:

• The goals and standard for presentation really vary across venue/discipline. What we value in computer science (in particular the areas I work in) are quite different than in other disciplines. It’s hard for me to discuss this without value judgement (since I am bred to believe in the “CS way”), but I also plead ignorance to the practices in other area. I’d like to use this as a chance to learn about others.
• I don’t consider myself to be a great presenter. Do as I say, not as I do. The upside of this, is that it means I think about how to be better at it.
• A lecture is not the same as a talk, so what you see in class is quite different than what you would see in one of my talks.
• Even within a particular style/venue/type of talk, there is a wide range of opinions on what is good talk, what the goals should be, …
• The “right answer” depends not only on the situation, but on the person. But that will be one of the biggest lessons I hope you get. I may not speak to your specific case, but hopefully, you can see how the general lessons apply.
• As you might guess, I have strong opinions. But you don’t have to guess at what they are, since I’ve written them down.

Given that…

My real goal is to get you to think about what might make for a good presentation, and to form your own strong opinions – even if they are different than mine.

What I would like everyone to do (before Wednesday, April 25th):

1. Try to think of the best presentation you’ve seen in recent memory. Actually, try to think of three: the best in general, the best in your area, and the one you most aspire to. They might be the same one, or they might be different. Think of this before doing the next things. (and no, you can’t use #2 ). Try to think about what made these presentations so great. Write this down before proceeding to the next steps.
2. If you’ve never seen a presentation by Hans Rosling, watch one. They are easy to find. Here’s one I have handy. If you have seen one already, you probably would like an excuse to watch another one. Although, you just need to watch some presentation online by someone generally considered to be a good presenter.
3. Read through my rant about presentations. This will be a coming attraction for the class discussion. Think of it as a way to load up on rotten tomatoes to throw at me while I rant.
4. (if you are a grad student) Try to find some presentation advice for your discipline. What makes for a good talk in your world? Has anyone written it down? If you can find a pointer to something on the web, that would be valuable for us all!
5. Make a post on Piazza, on this page

The following things are optional:

For the entertainment value of Tufte at his absolute worst, you can read his essay “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint.” There is a ton of commentary on this, but I recommend actually seeing the actual essay first. It is available on the protected reader. If you are able to see through Tufte’s rhetoric, there are actually some useful points here. But they are sufficiently hard to extract, that I suggest this on mainly for entertainment value. Finding a level-headed commentary on it might be more valuable (much like in the chart junk debate), but I don’t have one handy. If you find one you think is any good, please post about it.

I am explicitly not asking you to think about slide design – since I think it takes away from the main message. If you want to learn about slide design, there are lots of good books (my current fave is presentationzen design – I just found out that UW has it online! (alt link)). And numerous great websites. If you have a favorite, post about it!

(due Wednesday, April 18th)

These were called seek and find, but I changed the same a little bit to make it catchier and more about the real goal.

For this assignment, you need to find an example of a visualization on the web. You need to find an example that shows relational (graph) information, but not using an explicit node/link diagram representation (as a line or curve connecting the nodes). (update – it might be hard where the links aren’t shown explicitly. if you can’t chose one that uses some interesting way to place the nodes)

In your description of it: critique the choice of not using the explicit node/link representation. Why (and why not) was this a good choice by the visualization’s author. Your critique should be more general (give a sense of what it is trying to convey, and how effective it is).

The ground rules are similar to the last seek and find exercise:

Find a visualization, preferably on the web (so you can give a link to it). Preferably one that can be conveyed well in a small picture, and preferably one that presents data of interest to you (especially if you work in some domain). Preferably one that is different than what other people have given.

Grab a snapshot of the visualization (as a picture like a PNG or JPEG – you may need to use screen capture and then edit it). In addition to linking to the visualization, we want you to post a picture (unless you can figure out how to embed without uploading). Please make sure the picture isn’t too big (if you upload a big picture, it even uses bandwidth if you show it at small size).  We want the picture by itself so we can see it without following the link to where its from, and to see it out of context).

When you attach your picture to the Piazza question, make sure that you use a filename that includes your name (enough so we know who posted what). Embed a small version of the image into your posting, and a link to where the picture came from.

Your posting should explain the network information that is being conveyed, a critique based on the concepts in class about its effectiveness, and an explicit comment on the designers choice of a non-explicit node-link diagram format.

If you are having a tough time finding something that isn’t clearly not a node-link diagram, you might also want to explain why you picked it as an example that gets away from the standard kind of display.

This assignment is due on Wednesday, April 18th. (although leniency for assignments turned in before Friday the 20th).

The Piazza page is here.

Due Monday, April 23rd

The goal here is to try to understand how animation might help with visualization. However, to get there, I’d like people to learn about the art of animation, to appreciate how it should be done “right.” So yes, we’re going to watch (and read about) cartoons.

You need to read one of the “principles” readings, and the “animated transitions” (Heer) reading (at the bottom). The cutting article at the bottom is actually for the next assignment, but I include it here in case you want to read ahead.

The classic reference for the Principles of Animation is “The Illusion of Life” – a book about the history of Disney animation. It’s a coffee table art book – not necessarily something meant for either animators or computer scientists to learn from. But it is fabulous, and full of great examples from classic Disney films:

• Johnson and Thomas. Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life. Several editions (Aberville Press, 1981 is the “original” I think). Chapter 3:The Principles of Animation. (26MB download)

Because so many artists wanted this book, it has been reprinted many times (I own 3 different reprints). Curiously, one of the editions is more focused on teaching artists. In this version, Chapter 1 is the principles (very similar to Ch3 in the original). The preface is a good introduction to animation pre-“Principles” (which is good for understanding them). And Chapter 2 is a great summary of how they made the movies (irrelevant for class).

• Preface – Early Animation (useful since you might realize why Computer Animation when done wrong is more like this than the good stuff in the next chapter)
• Chapter One – Principles of Animation (very similar to Chapter 3 above, but maybe a little more focused – this is the recommendation if you are going to pick one – warning, 44Mb)
• Chapter Two – Production (irrelevant for class, but fun and nice to look at – warning, 115Mb)

John Lasseter was a Disney animator who went to work with a small company of graphics hackers. The company grew and grew and grew and now everyone knows Pixar. His SIGGRAPH 1987 paper was a seminal work where he introduced the graphics world to the principles of animation. The basic content is the same as the Johnson and Thomas chapter, but its more condensed, and the examples are from Pixar films.

• John Lasseter. Principles of traditional animation applied to 3D computer animation. SIGGRAPH 1987. (acm site with PDF). Note, there are many summaries of this paper on the web. Here’s one by a well-known animator. But do read the original. (well, you’re even better off reading a Disney thing first, then reading this for historical context – if you’re interested ).

Now, you might wonder “what does this have to do with visualization.” One answer (and this is only one of several) can be seen in:

• Jeffery Heer and George Robertson. Animated Transitions in Statistical Data Graphics. InfoVis 2007. (project page – I strongly recommend watching the movie as it is well done. you might not even need to read the paper)

Note that this whole discussion is mainly relevant to ADDING motion to things, not necessarily visualizing motion. (in which case exageration and staging would be distortions). To get you thinking about showing motion, we’ll think about the opposite problem of animation:

• Cutting, J. E. (2002). Representing motion in a static image: constraints and parallels in art, science, and popular culture. Perception, 31(10), 1165-93. (online)

For Monday, April 23rd, you must read (at least) one of the Johnson and Thomas Chapters and the Heer paper. On the Piazza page (coming soon) (thanks Robert!) give your thoughts, both on the art of animation, as well as its relationship to visualization. Think about how the animation principles might be useful in presenting information – beyond just the examples of Heer&Robertson. The Cutting reading will be required as a separate assignment (but you might want to read ahead)