Syllabus

Course Overview

Visualizing data is a key step in understanding many problems. This course is designed to introduce students to methods of visualizing many different types of data, such as images, 3D surfaces, flow fields, and medical data. We will both use existing visualization software and program custom visualizations using C++ and OpenGL. Course activities include discussion of recent and classic research papers, weekly homework assignments, in-class critiques of visualization artifacts, and a final project to explore creative uses of these techniques.

Prerequisites

CSCI 1200 Data Structures and CSCI 2300 Intro to Algorithms or CSCI 2600 Principles of Software or permission of instructor. C++ and sufficient prior programming experience is required.

Learning Outcomes

Students who have successfully completed this course will be able to:

Analyze, interpret, and evaluate a specific visualization example and discuss how the visualization might be improved for more accurate interpretation or communication of patterns in the data.
Select or design an effective visualization strategy for a variety of different types of data.
Create a visualization of a new dataset using available open-source visualization resources.
Use visualization to communicate results of experiments and research in their field of study.
Incorporate visualization for debugging and improved program development or experimental data analysis in their field of study.