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(CS 457) Introduction to Data Visualization

Similar to a first-year seminar in graduate school, students will conduct a literature search in the field of data visualization by reading classic academic papers, discussing them, and implementing their algorithms. Students will also design, implement, and evaluate their own novel visualization systems, and present their results to their peers.

Credit Hours 3.0 Lecture
Prerequisites CS 301, CS 250
Offered Winter
Programs Computer Science (BS)

Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Articulate the historical relationship between computer graphics, scientific visualization, information visualization, and visual analytics.
  2. Implement and recognize certain canonical visualization techniques: histograms, scatterplots, parallel coordinates, treemaps.
  3. Convert raw data from spreadsheet format to a relational database table.
  4. Read and analyze academic papers, and explain them to others.
  5. Describe different types of information, and identify visualization schemes appropriate for each.
  6. Evaluate the effectiveness of a given visualization.