Revisiting Good Blogs: Eager Eyes (Robert Kosara, UNC-C)

Robert Kosara is a professor at UNC-Charlotte, responsible for opening my eyes to the world of information visualization and visual communication when I was a student in his graduate course a few years ago.  He is a deep thinker and his blog/website, Eager Eyes, is well worth taking the time to explore!


Here are some links to his posts:


You Only See Colors You Can Name "While color is a purely visual phenomenon, the way we see color is not only a matter of our visual systems.  It is well known that we are faster in telling colors apart that have different names, but do the names determine the colors or the colors the names? Recent work shows that language has a stronger influence than previously thought."

What is Visualization? A Definition

Understanding Pie Charts

Protovis Primer:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Chart Junk Considered Useful After All

Six Niche Visualization Blogs

Linear vs. Quadratic Change

State of Information Visualization, 2011 InfoVis in HTML5 "how-to", and more (Thanks to Robert Kosara)

Take a look at Robert' Kosara's recent post on his eagereyes blog:
 
The State of Information Visualization, 2011

In this post, Robert reviews of some of the important trends in information visualization in 2010, discusses the potential of HTML5 for creating information visualization experiences on the web, and makes a few predictions about the near future.  Robert is pretty sure that the world is ready for "truly interactive, browser-based visualization".  He notes that the Protovis Primers he shares on his website are quite popular.

Most of the following resources and links were taken from the eagereyes website:

Information Visualization, HTML5, and JavaScript Resources (more to come)
HTML5 and Visualization on the Web

Robert Kosara, eagereyes, 12/21/10

Canvas Tutorial (HTML element used to draw graphics using scripting)
HTML5 Canvas Cheat Sheet

Dive Into HTML5 Tutorial (canvas element)

HTML5 Games/Interactive Experiments  (Hakim El Hattab)

node.js: (How to run JavaScript on a server.)
JavaScript: The Key to In-Browser Visualization
Robert Kosara, eagereyes, 2/11/10
PROTOVIS
A Protovis Primer, Part 1
A Protovis Primer, Part 2
A Protovis Primer, Part 3
"Protovis is a very powerful visualization toolkit. Part of what makes it special is that it is written in JavaScript and runs in the browser without the need for any plugins. Its clever use of JavaScript's language features makes it very elegant, but it can also be confusing to people who are not familiar with functional programming concepts and the finer points of JavaScript." -Robert Kosara

The Year of InfoVis Theory

Robert Kosara, eagereyes, 3/10/10

Telling Stories with Data:  Using visualization to create narratives and engage audiences

VisWeek 2010

Embedding Information Visualization Within Visual Representation (pdf)

Caroline Ziemkiewicz and Robert Kosara

Thanks, Robert, for sharing these very useful resources!

Joy of Stats: Hans Rosling's information visualization show, plus more. Enjoy!

RELATED
GAPMINDER:
GAPMINDER World
Information Visualization

SOMEWHAT RELATED
HTML5 and Visualization on the Web
Robert Kosara, Eager Eyes, 12/21/2010

Technology, Entertainment, Design, and More: Videos of Recent TEDx Presentations in Charlotte, NC

What is TED?


"TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences -- the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer -- TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize" -TED


If you haven't heard,  the original version of TED "Ideas Worth Spreading" has spread around the world.  Charlotte's home-grown version, TEDx was held on September 24, 2010. What is TEDx?    "TEDx is a program that enables local communities such as schools businesses, neighborhoods or just groups of friends to organize, design and host their own TED-like events." 


Unfortunately,  I wasn't able to attend  TEDxCharlotte.  Fortunately, the presentations were captured on HD video and uploaded to the  TEDx Charlotte YouTube channel.  (I haven't watched them all, but as I learn more about each presenter, I'll update this post.)


The following TEDxCharlotte videos were organized in the order of presentation by Justin Ruckman and shared on his blog post, Video from TEDxCharlotte!


Tracy Russ (CEO, Russ Communications)& Q  (Founder, OnQ Productions) 

Roger Baumgarte, Professor Emeritus (Psychology), Winthrop University

 "Mid career, he made an abrupt change in the focus of his professional research, from short-memory to cross-cultural psychology as a result of personal experiences he had with close friendships while on a year-long sabbatical teaching at the American University in Paris." -SEITAR NC
John Silvia, Chief Economist, Wells Fargo

Patrick Dougherty, World Renown NC Sculptor

Nature of Man

Rich Deming, Co-Leader, Slow Food Charlotte

Randy Powell, Senior Researcher, Vortex-Based Mathematics Project

 "Math is the Voice of God"  The Rodin/Powell Solution: A New Approach to Vortex Based Mathematics
Irina Ly, Founding Co-Director, Community Education Project

 Tim Will, Executive Director, Foothills Connect Business & Technology Center

Robert Kosara, UNC-Charlotte, Department of Computer Science (Author of Eager Eyes)

Note:  I learned nearly everything I know about information visualization from taking Dr. Kosara's graduate course, Information Visualization and Visual Communication,  following his blog, and also following his links to awesome related research and ideas percolating amongst those in the infovis community.   Although I took the course in 2008, keeping up with infovis and visual communication an on-going process, since this field is rapidly growing and transforming.

Katie Wyatt, Abreu Fellow (TED), Founder, KidzNotes

Tom Low, Architect at Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co

Doc Hendley, Founder, Wine to Water 

Herb Jackson, Douglas C. Houchens Professor of Art, Davidson College

John Boyer, President and CEO, Bechtler Museum of Modern Art

FYI: My only connection to the Bechtler is my daughter, who spent a little bit of time during one of her internships photographing what she described as "awesome" works of art, helping out with a cataloging project for the Bechtler museum before it opened.  She now works as the coordinator of development at the Light Factory: Contemporary Museum of Photography and Film.
Plug: The Light Factory's educational program provides courses in photography and film including offerings for adults.   
Molly Barker, Founder, Girls on the Run

"Girls on the Run is a non-profit international program that inspires girls to Honor Their Bodies, Celebrate Their Voices, Embrace their Gifts and Activate Their Power. Our program is currently in over 150 cities across North America". Molly Barker's blog

John Love, Interdisciplinary Literary and Performance Artist

Below is an excerpt of an interview of John Love, posted in 2006 on the Weird Charlotte blog.  Given the de-evolution of Charlotte's banking industry and the long-lasting grip of the economic downturn,  his words are worth heeding, especially if our region's community wants to avoid following down the path of my birthplace, Detroit Michigan. (FYI: I left the Detroit area with my husband and two small children to make a new home in Charlotte in 1990.)

WC: What would help make Charlotte a more vibrant cultural city?

John: The pursuit of living poetically.

WC: What can we do right now to make Charlotte a more vibrant cultural city?

John: Be a player who creates the game, owns a piece of the game, and shares the game with the rest of the world. In fashion, art, theatre, film, music, design, and all things that define a culture, support the creation of the product here, create the product here, use the product here, value the product here, evolve the product here, and sell the product to everyone else. Don’t just be a consumer or an interpreter. Be an originator and make it all so exquisite that everyone wants a piece.

Artists at TEDxCharlotte 2010

More info to come!

SOMEWHAT RELATED
Just in case you were thinking of hosting your own local TEDx event:
TED's advice for creating effective multimedia presentations of TEDx talks

TEDx Charlotte (NC) Videos

This post was updated and revised. To view the new version, see:


Technology, Entertainment, Design, and More: Videos of Recent TEDx Presentations in Charlotte, NC

Information Visualization for the People: The End of Swivel & Lessons Learned - a great post by Robert Kosara (Eager Eyes)

The following post is worth reading:

The Rise and Fall of Swivel.com
Robert Kosara,  Eager Eyes 10/12/10


Swivel.com is (was) a web-based information visualization company that incorporated the concept of "social visualization" by providing a means for people to explore and interact with large data sets, and then share their insights with others.  Robert Kosara's recent blog post about the demise of the company sheds some light on how a company with a great concept withered away.


RELATED
Why Swivel Shut Down 
Nathan Yau, Flowing Data 10/19/10



(Image taken from Robert Kosara's Eager Eyes blog)


Review:  Swivel vs. Many Eyes (Robert Kosara, 2/18/07, Eager Eyes)

Many Eyes 
"The site will be down from 10 a.m. EST until the move is complete, which should take a day or two if all goes well. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this causes, but it will ensure a more reliable service in the long run."  10/19/10-Many Eyes Blog


About Robert Kosara - from eagereyes.org

"Robert Kosara is Assistant Professor of Computer Science at UNC Charlotte. His main research interests are information visualization for visual communication and theoretical foundations of visualization. Robert received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from Vienna University of Technology (Vienna, Austria). His list of publications can be found online on his vanity website.

Robert can be found on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Xing. You can use this site's contact form to send him an email."

About Nathan Yau & Flowing Data - from flowingdata.com

"FlowingData explores how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better - mainly through data visualization. Money spent, reps at the gym, time you waste, and personal information you enter online are all forms of data. How can we understand these data flows? Data visualization lets non-experts make sense of it all...As for me, I'm a PhD candidate in statistics. I live and breathe data. I also have a background in computer science and design. I do some freelancing from time to time, but mostly I'm just trying to work on my dissertation. You can find more about me here."

"

Multi-touch Parallel Coordinates for Interactive InfoVis (video and Info) via Dr. Robert Kosara

Dr. Robert Kosara's area of research is information and data visualization. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, College of Computing and Informatics, at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and also a member of the Charlotte Visualization Center.   He's fascinated with parallel sets/categorical data visualization.

Dr. Kosara is known for his deep thoughts about information visualization, as well as persuading others that they should think deep thoughts about the subject, too! His latest work is an example of interesting multi-touch interaction with representation of parallel coordinates using multi-touch trackpads commonly found on laptops, including the Macbook Pro.

Indirect Multi-touch Interaction for Brushing in Parallel Coordinates:

Indirect Multi-Touch Interaction for Brushing in Parallel Coordinates from Robert Kosara on Vimeo.


BELOW IS INFORMATION FROM THE VIMEO WEBSITE:

"This is the companion video for a paper we submitted recently. It describes a technique for interacting with parallel coordinates using the multi-touch trackpad found on laptops like Apple's MacBook Pro. 


Below is the abstract from that paper:
Interaction in visualization is often complicated and tedious. Brushing data in a visualization such as Parallel Coordinates allows the user to select data points according to certain criteria. Modifying a brush or combining it with another one usually requires a lot of additional effort and mode switches.
We propose the use of multi-touch interaction to provide fast and convenient interaction with Parallel Coordinates. By using a multi-touch trackpad rather than the screen directly, the users hands do not obscure the visualization during interaction. Using one, two, three, or four fingers, the user can easily and quickly perform complex selections. Being able to change the selections rapidly, the user can explore the data set more easily and effectively, and can focus on the data rather than the interaction."


RELATED
Robert Kosara's info about parallel sets
EagarEyes Shorts
IEEE VizWeek 2010 (21st IEEE Visualization Conference; 16th IEEE InfoVis Conference; 5th IEEE VAST Conference)  October 24-29, 2010, Salt Lake City, Utah


A plug for a couple of Dr. Kosara's recent publications:

Caroline Ziemkiewicz, Robert Kosara,
Implied Dynamics in Information Visualization,
Proceedings Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI), pp. 215–222, 2010. (acceptance rate 20%)

Robert Kosara,
Turning a Table into a Tree: Growing Parallel Sets into a Purposeful Project,
in Steele, Iliinsky (eds), Beautiful Visualization, pp. 193–204, O'Reilly Media, 2010.

Caroline Ziemkiewicz, Robert Kosara,
Embedding Information Visualization Within Visual Representation,
in Ras, Ribarsky (eds), Advances in Information and Intelligent Systems, Studies in Computational Intelligence, Vol. 251, pp. 307–326, Springer Verlag, 2010.