APIDays 2018 - Artificial Intelligence APIs - A roadmap to psychohistory
Viz workshop
1. THATCamp SEA
Data Visualization for Early Americanists
Lauren F. Klein
Georgia Institute of Technology
lauren.klein@lmc.gatech.edu
2. Data Visualization for Early Americanists
• An (abridged) history of data visualization
• Some uses of data visualization
• Some uses of data visualization for early Americanists
• Some easy data visualization tools
• Workshop!
5. Nicolas Lenglet du Fresnoy, Tables chronologiques de l’histoire universelle (1729).
6. “If the reader carry his eye vertically, he will see the contemporary state of all the
empires subsisting in the world, at any particular time. He may observe which were
then rising, which were flourishing, and which were upon the decline. Casting his eye a
little on each side of the vertical line, he will see what empires had lately gone off the
stage, and which were about to come on.”
Joseph Priestley, A New Chart of History (1769).
7. Visualization as “Cognitive Enhancement”
• Increased memory / processing resources
• Reduced search time
• Enhanced pattern recognition
• Perceptual inference (much faster than logical)
• Use of perceptual attention mechanisms for
monitoring
• Encoding information in a manipulable form
-- Stuart Card et al., Readings in Information
Visualization: Using Vision to Think (Morgan
Kaufman, 1999)
h/t to Chris Sula for the reference
8. “Information, that is imperfectly acquired, is generally as
imperfectly retained; and a man who has carefully investigated
a printed table finds, when done, that he has only a very faint
and partial idea of what he has read; and that like a figure
imprinted on sand, is soon totally erased and defaced.
“The amount of mercantile transactions in money, and of profit
or loss, are capable of being as easily represented in drawing,
as any part of space, or as the face of a country; though, till
now, it has not been attempted. Upon that principle these
Charts were made; and, while they give a simple and distinct
idea, they are as near perfect accuracy as is any way useful.
“On inspecting any one of these Charts attentively, a
sufficiently distinct impression will be made, to remain
unimpaired for a considerable time, and the idea which does
remain will be simple and complete, at once including the
duration and the amount.”
William Playfair, from the Introduction to The Commercial and
Political Atlas (1786)
10. William Playfair, from An Inquiry into the Permanent Cause of the Decline and Fall of
Wealthy and Powerful Nations (1805)
11. William Playfair, “CHART, Shewing at One View The Price of The Quarter of Wheat, &
Wages of Labour by the Week, from The Year 1565 to 1821” (1822)
12. “A great change is now operating in Europe, and though it is
impossible to guess in what it will most likely terminate, yet it is
very certain that it will neither in a political nor a moral view
return to its former situation. The minds of men, the
boundaries of nations, their laws and relations with each
other, are all in a state of change, and commerce must feel the
consequences of those events of which it has been a principal
cause.
“Should those revolutions and partitions already effected, or
about to be attempted, produce, as usual, political
fermentation in proportion to their importance, Europe may
probably be convulsed with war for fifty years to come. The last
century has been the century of arts and commerce, this newly
commenced may then be that of war and contention. If it turns
out so, a picture of the past will be a valuable thing, if, on the
contrary, commerce should continue its progress, this will
make the first part of a great whole, which, when completed
on some future day, will be a most valuable work.”
William Playfair, “Preface to the Third Edition,” The Commercial and
Political Atlas, 3rd edition (1801).
13. “It is not only of importance that this species of information
should be handed down, but also that it should go down in
such a form and manner as that any person might even,
though a native of another country, understand the nature of
the business delineated.”
William Playfair, “Preface to the Third Edition,” The Commercial and
Political Atlas, 3rd edition (1801).
14. Visualization insight
• It “forces” us to see.
--Stephen Ramsay, “In Praise of Pattern,” TEXT/
Technology 2 (1995).
15. “A Comparative View of the Quadrupeds of Europe and of America,” Notes on the
State of Virginia (1781-5).
16. Visualization insight
• It “forces” us to see.
--Stephen Ramsay, “In Praise of Pattern,” TEXT/
Technology 2 (1995).
• A way to “answer questions you didn’t know you had.”
--Catherine Plaisant, “The Challenge of Information
Visualization Evaluation” (2004)
17. Visualization insight
• It “forces” us to see.
--Stephen Ramsay, “In Praise of Pattern,” TEXT/
Technology 2 (1995).
• A way to “answer questions you didn’t know you had.”
--Catherine Plaisant, “The Challenge of Information
Visualization Evaluation” (2004)
• A way to tell a new story.
--Mark Hansen, on “Movable Type”
18.
19. The Uses of Visualization for Early Americanists
• It “forces” us to see.
--Stephen Ramsay, “In Praise of Pattern,” TEXT/
Technology 2 (1995).
• A way to “answer questions you didn’t know you had.”
--Catherine Plaisant, “The Challenge of Information
Visualization Evaluation” (2004)
• A way to tell a new story.
--Mark Hansen, on “Movable Type”
20. Methods of Visualization for Early Americanists
• Maps
• GoogleMaps (easy); GIS (hard)
• Timelines
• Dipity.com (easy); Timeline.js (medium); D3.js (hard)
• Charts
• ManyEyes (easy); Google Fusion Tables (medium); D3.js (hard)
• Text analysis/visualization
• ManyEyes (easy); Voyant (mostly easy); NLP tools (hard)
• Social network analysis and visualization
• Circos (easy); Gephi (medium); Cytoscape (medium); D3.js
(hard)
21. Methods of Visualization for Early Americanists
• Maps
• GoogleMaps (easy); GIS (hard)
• Timelines
• Dipity.com (easy); Timeline.js (medium); D3.js (hard)
• Charts
• ManyEyes (easy); Google Fusion Tables (medium); D3.js (hard)
• Text analysis/visualization
• ManyEyes (easy); Voyant (mostly easy); NLP tools (hard)
• Social network analysis and visualization
• Circos (easy); Gephi (medium); Cytoscape (medium); D3.js
(hard)
22. Great Tools for Data Visualization
http://www.idea.org/blog/2012/10/25/great-tools-for-data-visualization/
23. A Carefully Selected List of Recommended Tools
http://selection.datavisualization.ch/
