Data Visualization

The purpose of data visualization is to help people make sense of complex data by stimulating the sense of sight. Data are mapped from numbers and text to visual shapes. The result of this mapping is the shapes we commonly know, e.g. bar charts, line charts, etc. or less common heatmaps, treemaps, etc. images are obtained. These images help both to understand the data more easily and to notice patterns that are difficult to understand.

The basis of data visualization techniques is very old. Commonly known examples include the flow map of Napoleon's 1812 Russian expedition, and Florence Nightingale's rose diagram showing mortality rates. The first data visualizations were manual labour intensive as in these examples. However, with the development of computer science in the recent past, most of the visualizations have been moved to the computer environment and applications that can make very comprehensive interactive visualizations have been developed.

Funded Projects

• TÜBİTAK 1001 Project, ''Visual Data Analysis System Based on Spatial Augmented Reality and Physical Visualizations'', S. Balcısoy

Faculty Members