Project Description


Overview | Software | Proposals | Updates | Final Presentations/Reports | Projects from Other Courses | Back to 533 Home

Overview

There are two kinds of projects: programming and analysis. For programming projects, you may do the projects individually or in teams of 2 or 3. The total amount of work done must be commensurate with the size of the group.

Programming: For a programming project, you will implement a visualization system of your own. You may use existing components as the base for your system.

Analysis: For an analysis project, you will pick an application domain to address, and write a combination survey/analysis paper about it. No serious programming is required, so this option is suitable for non-CS students. You will include a detailed survey of previous work in the area. This survey should be more considerably detailed than the required previous work section in the programming project writeup. You will pick one or more existing software tools to to analyze a dataset from that domain, so no serious programming is required. (You may need to write some scripts to change data formats, however.) The analysis should analyze the strengths and weaknesses of those tools, and discuss in detail whether they are effective for the task that you have chosen.

Software

The language and platform for your project is your choice.

In many lectures, I will include a section going into detail on one or two software packages and toolkits that you might use to build your final project. Some of these packages are now listed in the Software Resources page, and more will be added over the course of the lectures.

Proposals

Meet with me in person to discuss your project at least once before submitting a proposal!

You're submitting a proposal, not a specification - it's natural that your plans will change somewhat as you refine your ideas. But your proposal should be based on an idea that we've discussed and I've approved. When you come talk to me about your proposal, I'll give you some pointers to background reading in the area of your interest.

I advise that you start by thinking about what you want your software to do, and only then think about how you would implement it (languages, platforms, etc). The key is to find some domain and task that both interests you and presents an opportunity for infovis. That is, there is some task where a human needs to understand the structure of a large dataset. You're definitely welcome to link the infovis project to another class or research project. You may also build on existing software, but your project should include some implementation work of your own.

I do not advise that you start by deciding on a language, and then look around for some task that you might be able to do in that language - that's backwards, and is likely to stifle your creativity

Proposal format: your writeup should be at least two pages and include:

One proposal per project (whether it is individual or team) is due on March 1 by 2pm. Your proposal should be in the form of a web page, with both text and images. Send me the URL for the page to hand in the proposal.

Updates

The class sessions on March 15 and March 17 will be used for project update presentations. More details on exact schedule and format will be posted after the proposals are submitted.

Final Presentations/Reports

Final presentation length: 9 minutes individuals, 11 minutes groups
Final report format: PDF or HTML

You will present the results of your project with both a presentation and a written report. The presentation will occur during the final exam slot for this course, and the report is also due at that time. The reports should be the equivalent of about 8-10 pages of text (programming) or 15-20 pages (analysis), and should include screen snapshots of your running software. You can use as much space as you need for images, that's not included in the length restriction. Showing live demos of your software in action is encouraged in the final presentation. If you are giving a demo, be sure to practice in advance so that you don't run over your time slot! Also remember that the audience has seen your project update, so you don't need to repeat all of that. Focus more on your results.

In contrast, your final report should be a standalone document that fully describes your project. Do not assume the reader has seen your original proposal.

A great example of a final writeup from last year's course is the
Prawn paper.

Projects From Other Courses

There are several previous infovis courses that have project components, browsing through the final reports may help you think about what you might like to do, and what scope is realistic for a course project.
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Tamara Munzner
Last modified: Fri Apr 16 13:16:31 PDT 2004