Course description

Many scientists are increasingly confronted with the problem of expressing results of their work in terms that are easily, and compactly, understandable for large audiences. Visualization is a perfect medium for this task. Data visualization imagery is increasingly important for scientific presentations, reports, and scientific papers. However, generating high-quality visualizations that effectively communicate desired insights, is a challenging task.

The aim of this course is to provide an in-depth introduction to practical data visualization for scientists. The course covers a presentation of existing visualization sub-disciplines; a discussion of several visualization techniques which are frequently used in science; a discussion of relevant perception issues which should be considered when producing visualizations; and a tutorial on visualization design. Several concrete use-cases involving designing effective visualizations for a selected set of problems is used to exemplify the presented material.

The course is finalized by a practical assignment. The aims of this assignment are to 

• apply the taught principles, techniques, and design guidelines to the construction of a concrete data visualization
• relate the taught principles to the specific research domain(s) of the students
• practically discover the added-value, but also pitfalls and challenges, of applying data visualization techniques to concrete problems
• defend the design choices made during the construction of an own visualization, so one can better understand the design process
• The targeted audience includes (young) researchers working in a data-intensive context, e.g. life sciences, mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, or computer science. Students will work on their own data set. Students are not expected to (be able to) develop visualization software. Having a basic mathematical background including statistics, data sampling, and/or data representation, is highly helpful.

Course objectives

The course consists of five lectures and an assignment. Click for full lecture details or practical information about the final assignment.

ECTS

3

Available methods of payment

• Projectcode (e.g. ITB)
• Payment by money transfer
• Extern (not Faculty Science and Engineering)