Visualization (CS 171)

The amount and complexity of information produced in science, engineering, business, and everyday human activity is increasing at staggering rates. The goal of CS 171 is to expose students to visual representation methods and techniques that increase the understanding of complex data. Good visualizations not only present a visual interpretation of data, but do so by improving comprehension, communication, and decision making.

Taught be Hanspeter Pfister, students learned how the human visual system processes and perceives images, good design practices for visualization, methods for visualization of data from a variety of fields, and programming of interactive web-based visualizations using D3.

Check out the tabs below to see some students' final projects from Fall 2019.

Underage and Under Fire

Title: Underage and Under Fire

Members: Dasha Metropolitansky, Jessica Bishai, and Kelli Aquino

About: Our project is a data-driven exploration of the toll firearms have taken on children and teenagers in the United States. We visualize causes of firearm injuries and deaths over time, the geography of gun violence, a breakdown of its victims, and the relationship between firearm deaths and gun control policy.

[[{"fid":"3841627","view_mode":"default","type":"media","attributes":{"height":"360","width":"480","style":"width: 480px; height: 360px;","alt":"CS171 Final Project Video on YouTube","title":"CS171 Final Project Video","class":"media-element file-default"}}]]

Mergers & Visualizations

Title: Mergers & Visualizations

Members: Lin Zhu,

About: Through data visualizations, we tell a visual story of the 5 tech giants’ rise to power. To achieve this broader goal, we use visualizations to describe the trajectory of the tech industry’s sectors, depict the acquisitions that the big 5 tech companies made during their rise to dominance, communicate the general public perception of the big tech companies, and link the views together to create a complete picture of the rise of the big 5 tech companies to industry monopolization. In terms of our website design goals, we wanted to create an intuitive, easily-digestible website with an engaging story and a few unique visualizations..

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Title: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Members: Rachel Moon, Benjamin Levy, Pat Sukhum, Kevin Ji When Yoon

About: Our data visualization project investigates how popular Marvel superhero movies are, and examines what features ("superpowers") have made Marvel Cinematic Universe so successful.

Loneliness: A Social Story

Title: Loneliness: A Social Story

Members: Masters in Design Engineering (MDE) students Runjian Tian, MDE APDP '21, Guangyu Du, MDE Technology '20, and Lucy Yip, MDE Technology '20

About: This interactive data visualization is the 2nd best in 2019 Fall CS171 Visualization final projects. Loneliness is a sad reality of modern societies. Whether voluntary into solitude or forced into loneliness, we live in a multi-dimensional space with numerous factors that influence our social connections. We hope to use this project as an opportunity to explore the multitude of the subject through referencing and comparing existing quantitative and qualitative research data. Our goal is to raise awareness about the new global problem loneliness through exploring and systematizing it in modern day context, especially in relation to societal setting and affective manifestation.