VIZBI 2012
Visualization Principles Tutorial
This tutorial took place on Monday Mar 5th 2012 at VIZBI 2012 in Heidelberg Germany.
Introduction
Jessie Kennedy · We will present fundamental principles of graphic design and visual communication that will help you create more effective interactive and print visualizations. You will learn how the purposeful use of salience, color, consistency and layout can help communicate large data sets and complex ideas with greater immediacy and clarity.
Cydney Nielsen · We will illustrate how these principles were implemented in ABySS-Explorer to visualize genome assemblies, an example to show you ways to apply design ideas to your own project.
Martin Krzywinski · At the end of the tutorial, you will apply what you have learned in an interactive group session in which you will design a figure illustrating a biological process.
Agenda
Download agenda + participant list
| 9:30 – 10:15 | 45 min | Jessie Kennedy Principles |
| 10:15 – 10:25 | 10 min | break |
| 10:25 – 11:10 | 45 min | Cydney Nielsen Design Process |
| 11:10 – 11:20 | 10 min | form teams + select figure to critique |
| 11:20 – 11:30 | 10 min | break |
| 11:30 – 12:00 | 30 min | Martin Krzywinski Practical — Breakout session download papers |
| 12:00 – 13:00 | 60 min | team presentations Interactive suggested solutions |
It is not necessary to read the paper from which your figure was selected. I have included the papers only if you are interested in learning about the figure's context.
Visualization and Design Resources
Effect of resolution on sequence visualization
Principles of effective color selection
Designing effective visualizations in the biological sciences (PSA Genomics Workshop, Seattle, 12 July 2011)
Circos and Hive Plots: Challenging visualization paradigms in genomics and network analysis (PSA Genomics Workshop, Seattle, 12 July 2011)
Designing effective visualizations in the biological sciences (Genome Sciences Center bioinformatics seminar, 26 August 2011)
Drawing Data: Creaing information-rich, informative and appealing figures for publication and presentation (BCCA workshop, 8 Jun 2011)
Behind a great figure is a design principle (BCB Spring Seminar, Iowa State, 27 Feb 2012)
Visualizing Quantitative Information (Genome Sciences Center bioinformatics seminar)
Blast from the past
Nasa to send our human genome discs to the Moon
We'd like to say a ‘cosmic hello’: mathematics, culture, palaeontology, art and science, and ... human genomes.
Comparing classifier performance with baselines
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. —George Orwell
This month, we will illustrate the importance of establishing a baseline performance level.
Baselines are typically generated independently for each dataset using very simple models. Their role is to set the minimum level of acceptable performance and help with comparing relative improvements in performance of other models.
Unfortunately, baselines are often overlooked and, in the presence of a class imbalance5, must be established with care.
Megahed, F.M, Chen, Y-J., Jones-Farmer, A., Rigdon, S.E., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2024) Points of significance: Comparing classifier performance with baselines. Nat. Methods 20.
Happy 2024 π Day—
sunflowers ho!
Celebrate π Day (March 14th) and dig into the digit garden. Let's grow something.
How Analyzing Cosmic Nothing Might Explain Everything
Huge empty areas of the universe called voids could help solve the greatest mysteries in the cosmos.
My graphic accompanying How Analyzing Cosmic Nothing Might Explain Everything in the January 2024 issue of Scientific American depicts the entire Universe in a two-page spread — full of nothing.
The graphic uses the latest data from SDSS 12 and is an update to my Superclusters and Voids poster.
Michael Lemonick (editor) explains on the graphic:
“Regions of relatively empty space called cosmic voids are everywhere in the universe, and scientists believe studying their size, shape and spread across the cosmos could help them understand dark matter, dark energy and other big mysteries.
To use voids in this way, astronomers must map these regions in detail—a project that is just beginning.
Shown here are voids discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), along with a selection of 16 previously named voids. Scientists expect voids to be evenly distributed throughout space—the lack of voids in some regions on the globe simply reflects SDSS’s sky coverage.”
voids
Sofia Contarini, Alice Pisani, Nico Hamaus, Federico Marulli Lauro Moscardini & Marco Baldi (2023) Cosmological Constraints from the BOSS DR12 Void Size Function Astrophysical Journal 953:46.
Nico Hamaus, Alice Pisani, Jin-Ah Choi, Guilhem Lavaux, Benjamin D. Wandelt & Jochen Weller (2020) Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 2020:023.
Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12
Alan MacRobert (Sky & Telescope), Paulina Rowicka/Martin Krzywinski (revisions & Microscopium)
Hoffleit & Warren Jr. (1991) The Bright Star Catalog, 5th Revised Edition (Preliminary Version).
H0 = 67.4 km/(Mpc·s), Ωm = 0.315, Ωv = 0.685. Planck collaboration Planck 2018 results. VI. Cosmological parameters (2018).
constellation figures
stars
cosmology