Type: lecturenote
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Histories of Data Visualisation
Listener’s Notes:
- Date: 20.10.2025 / Wednesday
- Paper: Friendly, Michael. ‘A Brief History of Data Visualization’. Pp. 15-49. In Handbook of Data Visualization, edited by Chun-houh Chen, Wolfgang Härdle, and Antony Unwin. Springer, 2008.
- Main arguments and concepts:
- Data visualization is not a modern invention, but have deep roots into the history of map-making, geometry, and early statistics.
- The history is characterized by distinct periods, there is an evolution.
- Questions:
- Notes:
- Key areas & problems:
- Date: 20.10.2025 / Wednesday
- Paper: Chapter “Escaping Flatland” (pp. 185-198) in: A History of Data Visualization and Graphic Communication by Michael Friendly and Howard Wainer (2021)
- Main arguments and concepts:
- Questions:
- Notes:
- The book as a whole is “A comprehensive history of data visualization, its origins, rise and effects on the ways we think”
- An examination of dimensions
- 1D → 1.5D → 2D → 3D
- Visual thinking
- Maps are 2D, but they also show 3rd dimension (tophographic, contour maps)
- there was not a agreed method to calculate level curves at first —
- “axonometric projection” was the big step towards standardization
- Key areas & problems:
Lecture Notes:
- About Presentations:
- Clear structure is important
- Having authors in the beginning of the presentation gives credibility
- Try to come up with a narrative, doesn’t have to be a story, but rather a progress
- Visual slides
- Spent time to explain obscure
- In the discussion part: Go with a simple question, and try to help people by giving an examples