Teaching Staff

Professor: Evan Maicus

Email: maicue@rpi.edu
Office: https://rensselaer.webex.com/meet/maicue
Office Hours: Thursdays 12-2pm, after lecture, and by appointment (send email)
Webpage: www.emaicus.com

Teaching Assistant: Maksim Kholiavchenko

Email: kholim@rpi.edu
Office: https://rensselaer.webex.com/meet/kholim
Office Hours: Wednesdays 1-3pm

Important Dates:

• Weekly Homework Assignments: Usually assigned on Friday and due the following Thursday at midnight
• Exam 1: Friday July 2
• Exam 2: Tuesday August 10
• Final Project Presentations: August 13, 17, 20 -- the final three lectures

Final Project

For information regarding the course's final project, please navigate to this page.

Course Content

All lecture recordings will be posted in this YouTube playlist.
Note: All readings must be completed and forum posts made at 8pm or earlier on the day preceding the next lecture.

Lecture 18, Tuesday August 3

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Reading Assigned

• "What Makes a Visualization Memorable?", Borkin, Vo, Bylinskii, Isola, Sunkavalli, Oliva, & Pfister, INFOVIS 2013.

Lecture 17, Friday July 30

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Homework Assigned

Final Project Proposal
Due: Monday, August 2 @ 11:59pm
Homework Specification

Reading Assigned

• "Active Reading of Visualizations", Walny, Huron, Perin, Wun, Pusch, and Carpendale, IEEE InfoVis 2017

Lecture 16, Tuesday July 27

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Homework Assigned

Final Project Proposal
Due: Monday, August 2 @ 11:59pm
Homework Specification

Reading Assigned

• "Immersive Collaborative Analysis of Network Connectivity: CAVE-style or Head-Mounted Display?",Cordeil, Dwyer, Klein, Laha, Marriott, Thomas, IEEE InfoVis 2016

Lecture 15, Friday July 23

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Homework Assigned

Homework #8: Volume Visualization using Paraview (The Last Homework!)
Due: Thursday, July 29 @ 11:59pm
Homework Specification

Reading Assigned

• "Designing Effective Step-by-step Assembly Instructions", Agrawala, Phan, Heiser, Haymaker, Klingner, Hanrahan, & Tversky, SIGGRAPH 2003

Lecture 14, Tuesday July 20

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Reading Assigned

• "Interactive Dynamic Volume Illumination with Refraction and Caustics", Magnus & Bruckner, IEEE TVCG 2017

Lecture 13, Friday July 16

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Homework Assigned

Homework #7: Stream Graphs
Due: Thursday, July 22 @ 11:59pm
Homework Specification

Reading Assigned

• Farthest Point Seeding for Efficient Placement of Streamlines", Mebarki, Alliez, & Devillers, IEEE Visualization, 2005.

Lecture 12, Tuesday July 13

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Homework Assigned

Homework #6: Final Project Ideas
Part 1 Due: Wednesday, July 14 @ 11:59pm
Part 2 Due: Thursday, July 15 @ 11:59pm
Part 3 Due: Tuesday, July 20 @ 11:59pm
Homework Specification

Readings Assigned

• "Adaptive Privacy-Preserving Visualization Using Parallel Coordinates", Dasgupta & Kosara, TVCG 2011
  
  AND
• Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics

Lecture 11, Tuesday June 29

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Homework Assigned

Exam 1
Available: Friday July 2nd from 6am-midnight on Submitty
Time Allowed: 2h5m + 10m
Back Exam: Previous Exam

Final Project: Begin thinking about your final project over break.
A link to the specification will be posted here soon!

Lecture 10, Friday June 25

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Readings Assigned

• "Representing Uncertainty in Graph Edges: An Evaluation of Paired Visual Variables", Guo, Huang, and Laidlaw, IEEE TCVG 2015

Lecture 9, Tuesday June 22

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Readings Assigned

• "Error Bars Considered Harmful: Exploring Alternate Encodings for Mean and Error", Correll & Gleicher, TVCG 2014

Lecture 8, Friday June 18

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Homework Assigned

Homework #5: Color!
Due: Thursday, June 24 @ 11:59pm
Homework Specification

Readings Assigned

• "Stacked Graphs -- Geometry & Aesthetics", Lee Byron & Martin Wattenberg, IEEE TVCG 2008

Lecture 7, Tuesday June 15

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Readings Assigned

Pick one of:

• "Modeling Color Difference for Visualization Design" Szafir, IEEE TVCG / IEEE VIS 2017
  OR
• "Optimizing Color Assignment for Perception of Class Separability in Multiclass Scatterplots", Wang, Chen, Ge, Bao, Sedlmair, Fu, Deussen, and Chen, IEEE InfoVis 2018

Lecture 6, Friday June 11

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Homework Assigned

Homework #4: Make Something Interactive
Due: Thursday, June 17 @ 11:59pm
Homework Specification

Readings Assigned

• "ColorBrewer.org: An Online Tool for Selecting Colour Schemes for Maps", Harrower & Brewer, The Cartographic Journal 2003

Lecture 5, Tuesday June 8

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Readings Assigned

• "LineUp: Visual Analysis of Multi-Attribute Rankings", Gratzl, Lex, Gehlenborg, Pfister and Streit, IEEE INFOVIS 2013

Lecture 4, Friday June 4

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Homework Assigned

Homework #3: Graph Visualization
Due: Thursday, June 10 @ 11:59pm
Homework Specification

Worksheet #2
Due: Sunday, June 6 @ 11:59pm
The worksheet can be found on the course materials page of Submitty. Complete it yourself or with one other student and turn it in to the Submitty gradeable by the due date.

Readings Assigned

None. Readings from previous lecture will be due on Tuesday, June 8.

Lecture 3, Tuesday June 1

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Readings Assigned

Pick one of:

• "Social Network Clustering and Visualization using Hierarchical Edge Bundles", Jia, Garland, & Hart, Computer Graphics Forum, 2011.
  OR
• "Angular Brushing of Extended Parallel Coordinates", Hauser, Ledermann, and Doleisch, InfoVis 2002

Lecture 2, Friday May 28

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Homework Assigned

Homework #2: Time-Based Datasets & Chart Junk
Due: Thursday, June 3 @ 11:59pm
Homework Specification

Readings Assigned

Pick one of:

• "Improved force-directed layouts", Gansner and North, Graph Drawing, 1999.
  OR
• "A Technique for Drawing Directed Graphs", Gansner, Koutsofios, North, & Vo, IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering, 1993."

Lecture 1, Tuesday May 25

Slides

The slides for lecture can be found at this link.

Homework Assigned

Homework 1: Inspirational Visualization Images
Due: Thursday, May 27 @ 11:59pm
Homework Specification

Readings Assigned

Pick one of:

• "Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe: Selecting the Right Graph for Your Message", Stephen Few, 2004
  OR
• "Useful Junk? The Effects of Visual Embellishment on Comprehension and Memorability of Charts", Bateman et al., CHI 2010

Syllabus

The course syllabus can be found at this link.