Archived web site from Fall 2021

We’ve made it to the last week!

You will turn in your DC2 project using the canvas handin quiz: DC2 Phase 5 (Canvas Wed, Dec 15). You may receive an extension as disccused on DC2 Final Dates and Presentations. This posting will explain what we would like you to turn in, and how to turn things in.

The final handin for Design Challenge 2 is due on Wednesday, December 15. An extension will be granted to teams that volunteer to present their work in class so they can incorporate feedback. Late assignments will be accepted until Sunday, 19th, but may be penalized.

We’re getting close to the end. Hopefully, your project is coming along well. Expect all the details for the final expectations soon.

In terms of content… This week is scheduled for two/three very different topics: Scientific Visualization, 3D and Uncertainty Visualization. Scientific Visualization is a whole field unto itself - I can’t teach a Vis course without giving you at least a taste of what its about. 3D comes up a lot in SciVis (and elsewhere). And Uncertainty comes up pretty much everywhere when we work with data - whether we acknowledge it or not.

I tried to provide quick feedback on the proposals - unfortunately, I wasn’t able to spend much time with them, but hopefully I can give something quickly. In order to cram things into Canvas Comments, I coded things. I am showing the codes to everyone - a comment that was given to someone else might apply to you. Indeed, some of the advice applies very generally.

Last week was an unusual week because it was Thanksgiving. This week is unnusual because we have leftovers from last week. The topic for discussion is Evaluation - how do we know that a visualization is good?

This posting will explain how to interpret your DC1 grades. As posted in Canvas, they can be a little hard to read.

Each assignment is ultimately given an 0-100 score (on the standard 90=A, 85=AB, 80=B scale. The University does not give A+s, but we do in class). This grade is only for the final handin - we did not consider other phases.

The final score was determined subjectively - there is no numerical method for combining the ordinal scores in the rubric.

I have given people feedback on Design Challenge 2: A Visualization Project (Hard Vis Problems) (phase-1) (assuming that you turned it in). It was done quickly and is brief, but hopefully, it can give you some guidance. Things can be discussed in more detail in office hours or after class.

We’ve made it to Thanksgiving week - which always seems to mark something in the semester. This is a weird week - both because its the holiday (although, Wednesday is not a holiday, so there is class), and that we’re in the midst of Design Challenge 2: A Visualization Project (Hard Vis Problems).

The topic this week is graphs (as in the “networks” kind). It’s a big topic that we will just touch on. We’ll have a lecture on Monday, and an in-class exercise (with a lecture component) on Wednesday. There is the usual reading and discussion. We’ll allow Seek and Find 12 : Graphs (due Mon, Nov 29) to be after the holiday, and cancel the weekly survey (so there is nothing due on the holiday - you are welcome to do things before the holiday).

We have moved the DC2 deadlines to wednesdays: DC2 Phase 2: Proposal (Design Exercise 9)  (due Wed, Nov 24) and DC2 Phase 3: Formulation (Design Exercise 10).

I will soon post some statistics we gathered about discussions to give you a sense of where you are relative to others. While the quantitative metrics are not used directly, they are a good proxy (they correlate well).

We will post the scores (canvas willing) as grading comments in the assignment Discussion Participation Scores (assuming Canvas lets us do this without actually posting a grade).

The initial posting is for the first 7 weeks.

Here are some pointers to example data sets for Design Challenge 2.

Warning: this is a work in progress, check back often to see if there is anything new…

Most files are in a canvas Files folder: https://canvas.wisc.edu/courses/273473/files/folder/DC2%20SampleData

This week, two big things happen: we really dig in to Design Challenge 2: A Visualization Project (Hard Vis Problems), and we talk about one of my favorite topics, color.

On Monday, Design Challenge 2: A Visualization Project (Hard Vis Problems) (Phase 1) is due. The main piece is to pick which problem you are going to work on, but the description gives some details of what we expect.

Project proposals are due at the beginning of next week DC2 Phase 2: Proposal (Design Exercise 9)  (Canvas Wed, Nov 24). That’s a major milestone. Hopefully during the week, you’ll make use of all the resources we have (like online discussions and office hours) to come up with good ideas.

And don’t forget to contribute to the DC2 Readings and Brainstorming discussions.

With color, there are many things I’d like to talk about. But instead, we’ll just touch on a few basics. I might try to do a color exercise in class on Wednesday. Or we might try another experiment in group brainstorming for the project.

Design Challenge 2: A Visualization Project (Hard Vis Problems) has been released. Since it’s in the Assignments section, it might not be as visible, so I am announcing it.

I am purposefully letting it out “early” - not every detail is worked out. I am expecting that student questions will help me figure our which parts need to be better defined.

We will discuss the project in class on Wednesday, so I recommend that you take a look beforehand. If nothing else, get a sense of the three project options so that you can start to decide.

This is an action packed week in Visualization… We will cover one of the biggest and most interesting topics: Perception. We are wrapping up past assignments with Design Exercise 7: Paris Apartments (Canvas Mon, Nov 8) and DC1 Redux (Canvas Tue, Nov 9). But we’ll also get started with Design Challenge 2: A Visualization Project (Hard Vis Problems) with the first phase due next week.

We will allow you to “do over” one of the designs you submitted for Design Challenge 1.

You may turn in one design as part of DC1 Redux: Do Over DC1 (due Tue, Nov 9) and we will use that to replace the corresponding design from your original submission. This is optional: you can skip this assignment, and we will grade what you turned in initially for DC1.