Visualization Techniques (Techniken der Visualisierung) WS'25/26
Vorlesung

News:     

We are currently running experiments, please follow this link to participate!

• The maximum number of participants for this lecture has been reached; therefore, those who registered after the limit was met have been placed on the waiting list. (Confirmed participants appear on the sign-in sheet provided in each lecture.)
• the registration is closed.
• Teaching evaluation (Online Lehrevaluation) now open, please fill it under:

  https://umfragen.tu-bs.de/evasys/online.php?pswd=WXWTC
  
  

• The selection period for talks has concluded and all papers have been now assigned.
  
  
• Each student needs to give a short scientific presentation of 14 minutes (+ 3 minutes for questions) on the assigned paper. The presentations should be in English, and can use any desired template. For your convinience, we offer the ICG slides template (but its use is not compulsory).
  
  
• For a more interesting discussion, the students should take a look at the papers that will be presented in each session (see the Agenda section).
• Selection of topic for the talk will start on:  10.11.2025 (09:00 am), and will finish on the 24.11.2025 (09:00 am). First come, first serve, mails before/after these date will be ignored. Please send a list of 3 papers in order of preference (please indicate their ID, e.g., #32). The list of available topics (and their IDs) will be periodically updated to show which ones are still free.
  • When reserving a topic, please also indicate 3 days in order of preference for your day of presentation (3^rd, 10^th and 17^th of December; 7^th, 14^th , 21^st and 28^th January) and we will try to keep it in consideration when arranging the order of the talks.
    
  • You are welcome to propose your own relevant topic, please send an e-Mail with your proposal (including the link to the corresponding paper).
  • All e-Mails should be sent to: tdv@cg.cs.tu-bs.de

• Selection of topic has started, and will finish on the 24.11.2025 (09:00 am). First come, first serve, mails after these date will be ignored and will result on not having a presentation. Please send a list of 3 papers in order of preference (please indicate their ID, e.g., #32). The list of available topics (and their IDs) will be periodically updated to show which ones are still free.
  • When reserving a topic, please also indicate 3 days in order of preference for your day of presentation (3^rd, 10^th and 17^th of December; 7^th, 14^th , 21^st and 28^th January) and we will try to keep it in consideration when arranging the order of the talks.
    
  • You are welcome to propose your own relevant topic, please send an e-Mail with your proposal (including the link to the corresponding paper).
  • All e-Mails should be sent to: tdv@cg.cs.tu-bs.de

• For those students for whom the lecture is offered as a 5-credits course, they need to turn in a 10-page write-up on their selected paper including additional background. The deadline to submit the report is the 04.02.2025  (23:59). Submission shall be done via email to tdv@cg.cs.tu-bs.de. 
• Template for the Report. Using this template is recommended but not mandatory.

Notes:                 

• This lecture does not use studIP. Please register to attend the lecture using the registration form on our website (https://www.cg.cs.tu-bs.de/teaching/students). This way we can notify you of any current changes. This registration is informal and does not replace the official examination registration at the respective examination office (if required for your course of studies).

• If you encounter any problems, please send an email to tdv@cg.cs.tu-bs.de.

• The lecture will be conducted in English.

• Lecture starts on the 22.10.2025

Description:

Photos, drawings, maps, diagrams, pictograms, cartoons, text, formulas, PowerPoint presentations...: Our sense of sight is the most important information input channel into our consciousness. Whether representational or abstract information, a suitable form of visualization enables us to grasp the meaning of information faster and more fundamentally than, for example, when we just hear the information.

The lecture will explore the background of information visualization from the perspective of computer science, psychology, neuroscience, and art. We will deal with questions like

• What is information?
• What forms of information exist?
• How does visual information enter our consciousness?
• How can information be visualized?
• What forms of visualization are there?
• What is attention?
• How is attention aroused visually?
• How is visual information stored in the brain?

The course is explicitly aimed at students of ALL disciplines and is also offered as a key qualification in the lecture pool "interdisciplinary qualification".

Place and time:

• Every Wednesday from 13:15 to 14:45
• Room IZ 161 (Lecture is exclusively conducted in presence)
  
• Lecture period: 20th October 2025 - 7th February 2026
• Begin: 22.10.2025

Contents:

• History of Visualization
• Our Visual Brain
• Perception in Visualization
• Visual Information Coding
• Good and Bad Design in Visualization

Administrative formalities:

• Duration: 2 SWS
• Credit points: Depending on your Prüfungsordnung (PO) -- 3 or 5 ECTS
• Grading: This is a "Studienleistung" lecture (Pass / Fail), therefore, there is no numerical grade attached,
• Examination modality: Presentation or Presentation+Written Report
• In order to obtain the course credits, each participant must prepare and give a short scientific presentation of around 12-14 minutes in length on one of the suggested papers. Additionally, for those students for whom the lecture is offered as a 5-credits course, they need to turn in a 10-page write-up on their selected paper including additional background. Topics will be assigned in November.
• Attendance of at least 50% of all sessions is required to acquire the study credit points.

Prerequisites:

• Interest in perception and the human visual system

Recommended Literature:

• Ward, Grinstein, and Keim. Interactive Data Visualization, AK Peters, 2010.
• Ware. Information Visualization, Elsevier, 2012.
• Munzner. Visualization Analysis and Design, AK Peters Visualization Series, CRC Press, 2014

Tips on How to Give a Talk:

•    Giving a research talk. Short pdf with recommendations by Fredo Durand (MIT CSAIL)

•    How to give a talk (that doesn't put your audience to sleep). Slides by  Ramesh Raskar (MIT Media Lab)

Topics:

Selection of topic for the talk has started and will end on:  24.11.2025 (09:00 am). Mails after that date will be ignored.

• Tufte, "Color and Information",1990, pp 81-95 - Paper ID #04
• Rogowitz et al., "How NOT to Lie with Visualization", 1996 - Paper ID #06
• Matzen et al. "Data visualization saliency model", 2017 - Paper ID #08
• Rayner et al., "So Much to Read, So Little Time: How Do We Read, and Can Speed Reading Help?", 2016 - Paper ID #09
• Schneiderman, "The Eyes Have It: A Task by Data Type Taxonomy for Information Visualizations", 1996 - PaperID #11
• Inselberg and Dimsdale, "Parallel Coordinates: A Tool for Visualizing Multi-Dimensional Geometry", 1990 - Paper ID #13
• Cioca and Nerisanu, "Enhancing Creativity: Using Visual Mnemonic Devices in the Teaching Process to Develop Creativity in Students", 2020 - Paper ID #15
• Stone, "Choosing Colors for Data Visualization", 2006 - Paper ID #16
• Rosenholtz, "What your visual system sees where you are not looking", 2011 - Paper ID #17
• Holten, "Hierarchical Edge Bundles: Visualization of Adjacency Relations in Hierarchical Data", 2006 - Paper ID #18
• Borland and Taylor, "Rainbow Color Map (Still) Considered Harmful", 2007 - Paper ID #19
• Zeileis et al., "Escaping RGBland: Selecting colors for statistical graphics", 2009 - Paper ID #20
• Zeileis and Hornik, "Choosing Color Palettes for Statistical Graphics", 2006 - PaperID #22
• Friendly et al., "A brief history of data visualization", 2008 - PaperID #25
• Pandey et al., "The Persuasive Power of Data Visualization", 2014 - Paper ID #28
• Axelsson et al., "Dynamic Scene Graph: Enabling Scaling, Positioning and Navigation in the Universe", 2017 - PaperID #33
• Rhyne., "Computer games' influence on scientific and information visualization", 2000 - Paper ID #34
• Judd et al., "Learning to predict where humans look", 2009 - Paper ID #36
• Ehgartner et al., "Visualizing the Movement of Space-Defining Rotatable Elements in Architecture", 2022 - PaperID #38
• Brinkman et al., "Visualizing mental representations in schizophrenia patients: A reverse correlation approach ", 2019 - Paper ID #42
• Moore, "Data Visualization in support of Executive Decision Making", 2017 - PaperID #43
• Lisnic et al., "Misleading Beyond Visual Tricks: How People Actually Lie with Charts", 2023 - Paper ID #48
• Yang et al., "How Can Deep Neural Networks Aid Visualization Perception Research?", 2023 - PaperID #52
• Tseng et al., "Measuring Categorical Perception in Color-Coded Scatterplots", 2023 - Paper ID #53
• Krause et al.,"Visually Analyzing Topic Change Points in Temporal Text Collections", 2023 - PaperID #59
• Graniczkowska et al.,"Factors Influencing Visual Comparison of Colored Directed Acyclic Graphs ", 2023 - PaperID #60
• Hrycak and Krüger,"An Investigation of the Apple Vision Pro for Out-of-Core Ray-Guided Volume Rendering with BorgVR", 2025 - PaperID #65
• Yin et al.,"Blowing Seeds Across Gardens: Visualizing Implicit Propagation of Cross-Platform Social Media Posts", 2025 - PaperID #73

Agenda:

Please note that the agenda is tentative at the moment. Check frequently for updates.