Bryn Mawr College
CS 120: Visualizing Information
Spring 2006
Course Materials
General Information
Instructor: Dianna Xu , 246A Park Hall, 526-6502
E-Mail: dxu at cs dot brynmawr dot edu
WWW: http://cs.brynmawr.edu/~dxu
Lecture Hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2:30 pm to 4 pm
Room: Park 232
Lab Hours: TBA
Lab room: Park 231
Office hours: Tues/Thurs 1-2pm and by appointment
Texts & Software
- The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward Tufte, Graphics Press, 2001.
- Learning to Program with Alice , by Dann, Cooper and Pausch, Prentice Hall, 2006.
Important
Dates
Jan 17: First lecture
April 27: Last lecture
Programming
Projects & Homework
Future home works will be posted here and/or handed out in class.
- hw1 (due Thursday 1/26)
- hw2 (due Thursday 2/2)
- hw3 (due Thursday 2/16)
- hw4 (due Thursday 3/23)
- hw5 (due Thursday 4/13)
Lectures
Tentative Syllabus
Week Topic 1 Introduction to visualization 2 Visual Perception and principles. Types of data and graphs, visual illusions 3 Structure and representation of data. Graphical integrity. Quantitative data analysis and graphical sophistication 4 Data-ink, chart-junk, what NOT to display 5 Maximizing data-ink, multifunctioning graphical elements, data density and small multiples 6 Aethetics and Techniques, color principles 7 Case studies: visualization in geology 8 Spring break! 9 Case studies: TBA 10 Intro to virtual reality and Alice 11 First programs, control structure, objects, methods and parameters 12 Event handling 13 Conditionals 14 Repetitions 15 Review and final project Detailed syllabus will be posted here as the semester progresses
- Week
1
Jan 17: Introduction and history
Jan 19: Motivation
- Week 2
Jan 24: Visual Perception and Principles, Types of Data and Graphs, Graphical Excellence
Read: Tufte pages 1-51
Jan 26: Your visualization presentations. Intro to Mathematica
- Week 3
Jan 31: Grapical Integrity
Read: Tufte pages 52-77
Feb 2: More on Mathematica: data structures
- Week 4
Feb 7: Intro to Alice
Feb 9: Alice: Getting started
Read: Learning to program with Alice: Chapter 1
- Week 5
Feb 14: Senarios and storyboards
Read: Learning to program with Alice: Chapter 2, Section 1
Feb 16: Alice: First Program
Read: Learning to program with Alice: Chapter 2, Section 2 and Tips and Techniques
- Week 6-7
Feb 24: Basic statistics
Feb 28: hell week lecture: water tanks and visualization
March 2 : class cancelled, I am out of town
- Week 8
Sprint break!
- Week 9
March 14: Guest Lecture: Prof. Emily Allen
March 16 : Guest Lecture: Prof. Catherine Riihimaki
- Week 10
March 21: Alice: functions and values
March 23: Alice: control structures, conditionals and loops
- Week 11
March 28: Alice: World-level methods
March 30: Alice: parameters
- Week 12
April 04: Alice: class-level methods and inheritance
April 06 : Alice: events and event handling
- Week 13
April 11: Alice: parameters and event handling
April 13: Alice: class-level functions
- Week 14
April 18: Project discussion and presentation
April 20 : Alice: If/Else and Boolean functions
- Week 15
April 25: Alice: Advanced loops
April 27 : Conclusion
Grading
Most programming work will receive a numerical score out of 100. Guidelines of letter grades corresponding to those scores will be given. Your final grade will be calculated from a weighted average of all scores/grades according to the following weights:
Assignments, readings and in-class work: 50%
Projects: 50%
Total: 100%
More details will be given out during class.
