"Visual Analytics"
John Stasko, College of Computing

12:00 Noon on Thursday, February 8, 2007
TSRB 132

Visual Analytics is a new term that has been coined to describe an emerging research area. More formally, visual analytics is "the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces." The area clearly shares much in common with older, more established area of information visualization, but visual analytics is a broader notion and includes a wider variety of analytic processes and goals.

The Department of Homeland Security chartered the National Visualization and Analytics Center (NVAC) in 2004 to promote research on visualization analytics, with a special focus on activities like emergency response, intelligence analysis, and border patrol. As part of NVAC, five Regional Visualization and Analytics Centers (RVACs) were created at universities in 2006, including one here at Georgia Tech that is run jointly with our partners at UNC-Charlotte.

In this talk, I will explore more deeply what visual analytics is all about and I will describe the research mission being performed by NVAC. I also will discuss the individual projects being conducted by faculty and students here in our RVAC and the educational projects we are leading as well.