CSC5991: Interactive Data Visualization (Winter 2008)

INSTRUCTOR: Professor Jing Hua (), 458 State Hall

CREDITS: 3

LECTURES: Tuesday & Thursday, 1:25PM - 2:50PM, 208 State Hall

OFFICE HOURS: Tuesday & Thursday, 3:00PM - 4:30PM, or by appointment

Prerequisite: None

NOTE: Students can repeat CSC 5991 courses towards his/her degree as long as the previously studied courses are actually different from the current one.

GOAL:

The goal of this course is to provide a comprehensive and systematic understanding of scientific and information visualization pipelines, study interactive interface design for visualization, demonstrates state-of-art techniques in scientific and information visualization, and thus prepare students for research and work related with visualization and visual interface design. Many real applications, including medical data visualization, financial data visualization, and web-based information visualization, will be studied and discussed.

TOPICS:

Introduction to visual programming

User interface design
Interactive techniques for visual exploration

Scientific data visualization

Information visualization

Web-based visualization

Interactive visualization toolkits
Applications in Medicine, Engineering, Physics, Education, etc.

RECOMMENDED (OPTIONAL) TEXTBOOKS:

1. The Visualization Toolkit, An Object-Oriented Approach,  ISBN 1-930934-12-2
2. Robert Spence. Information Visualization. 2nd Edition. Pearson. 

LECTURES:

Primary material of this course will come from the textbooks. In addition, material from recent articles or relevant reference books will be presented. Numerous slides and video tapes on visualization will be shown. Students are advised to attend the class and follow the lecture notes closely.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

COURSE NOTES & READING:

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ASSIGNMENTS:

GRADING SCHEMES:

This course emphasizes a "hands-on'' approach to both the better understanding of graphics theory/algorithms and the effective use of graphics techniques. Each student is required to complete assignments. The assignments involve both analytic problems as well as programming projects using parts of graphics packages. The programming projects will be done in C/C++/OpenGL or Java/Java 3D. You are expected to have knowledge in C/C++ or Java in this course. The assignments are counted as 50% of the final grade. The other 50% of the final grade will be based on class attendance and performance (10%) and a course project (40%). No written exams!

The work submitted should be your own. Late assignments will be penalized 10% per day. Furthermore, because a primary goal of the course is to teach professionalism, any academic dishonesty (e.g., plagiarism) will be viewed as a serious academic offense, thus as an evidence that the above goal has not been achieved and will be grounds for receiving a grade of "F".

Machine failure should not be a reason to delay assignment due dates unless there is a major catastrophe, which will be announced by the instructor. Considering the possibility that machine failure may happen and then contention for machines will occur, my advice to all of you is that you please start the projects as early as possible.

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Some special events such as graphics video demonstration and visitors' research presentation in visualization may be held during this semester. The instructor will make announcements here when such events happen.

Other important announcements relevant to this course such as the change of assignment due dates or exam dates will also be posted here whenever necessary.

COMPUTER FACILITIES:

The programming assignments will make use of Unix and PC facilities. More information about computer facilities that you can use will be updated shortly.

SPECIAL NOTES:

If you have any specific concern regarding this course, you are welcome to talk with me in person.

ACADEMIC HONESTY: