CS142 15 CATS (7.5 ECTS) Term 2

Availability

Option - CS, CSBS and DM

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the module the student should be able to:

• Understand and demonstrate the core skills required to effectively visualise information and processes.
• Explore procedures, data and emergent systems as the subject of visualisations.
• Demonstrate an understanding of visualisations and their usage in a wide variety of applications.
• Evaluate visualisations in terms of users and tasks, and human factors.

Content

• Introduction
• How visualisations convey information
• Principles and tecniques for creating effective visualisations
• Mapping information to images
• Limits of visualisation
• Ethical challenges
• Visualising algorithms e.g. travelling salesman problem, Dijkstra's algorithm, graph drawing, voronoi diagrams, geometric tessellation
• Visualising data sets, e.g. DNA sequences, sound files or a collection of tweets
• Coding natural systems e.g. cellular automata, flocking, reaction-diffusion systems and computationial biology applications
• Processing as a tool for visualising information

Books

• Reas, C. and Fry, B. (2014) Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers (Second Edition) MIT Press.
• Schiffman, D. (2012) The Nature of Code: Simulating Natural Systems with Processing.
• Tufte, ER. (2001) The visual display of Quantative Information
• Sedgewick, R and Wayne, K. (2011) Algorithms (Second Edition)

Assessment

Assessed coursework (100%)

Teaching

20 one-hour lectures
10 two-hour lab sessions.