Grand Opening Symposium
 
Charlotte Visualization Center Grand Opening
Symposium on the
Future of Visualization



There were 300 registrants for the Symposium. They heard a series of outstanding talks and participated in discussions that showed the vibrancy of the field. Many contacts were made and follow-on collaborations discussed.

Online Archive of Presentations

Symposium Schedule


Dates: Monday, May 1 and Tuesday, May 2, 2006
Time: 8:30am - 5pm on May 1
8:30am - 4pm on May 2
Venue: The Cone Center - McKnight Auditorium
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
9201 University City Blvd
Charlotte, NC 28223-0001
(704) 687-2000




General Information
On May 1 and 2, 2006, the Charlotte Visualization Center will host the Symposium on the Future of Visualization. This will be an event of national importance with leading visionaries in the field of visualization presenting their views on the next big things in research and development in this burgeoning field. This is a unique opportunity to hear all these leaders speak at the same event and to have them address this topic. In addition, attendees will see demonstrations of the latest visualization tools, tour the Charlotte Visualization Center, see initial work from our new DHS Regional Visualization and Analytics Center, and meet colleagues from business, government, and academia.

Visualization and the related field of visual analytics are receiving much attention because of their unmatched ability to attack problems centered on very large flows of information where direct user involvement and control are essential. For these problems, interactive visualization integrated with analysis and reasoning techniques permits new modes of exploration, discovery, and understanding. Monitoring and analyzing large segments of the Web, large scale business transaction streams, multimedia streams over a large number of channels, and other problems like these are tasks of such size and complexity that the user does not know at the outset what content and relations the data contain. Thus these are the problems that require the new methods of visualization.

The intended audience includes academics, students, software developers, security and emergency response administrators, business and marketing analysts, industrial and government researchers. This symposium will reveal what the future holds for interactive visualization and visual analytics in such areas as business intelligence, risk management, biomedical visual analysis, environmental analysis, critical infrastructure visual simulation, and other areas. It will show why companies such as Microsoft, Google, General Motors, Toyota, and large banks and financial institutions are very interested in the field, the tools being developed, and the students being trained. It will also show why there is now or will soon be significant funded support by agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health.


Cost of Attendance
Attendance is free of charge for the UNCC community. However, you must register to attend.

The cost of the event (including refreshments and lunch) for Non-UNCC individual attendees is $99.00 for early registration and $120 afterwards.

Early Registration Deadline: April 10, 2006

Click here for costs for sponsors, groups, and exhibitors.


Registration
Online registration is now closed. Please register onsite at McKnight Hall starting Monday, May 1 at 8:30 am.


Speakers
Stu Card, Senior Research Fellow at PARC, ACM Fellow, first recipient of the SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award, and did the first human factors studies leading to the mouse’s introduction, "Using Vision to Think"
Jim Foley, ACM and IEEE Fellow, Founding director of Georgia Tech's GVU Center, Steven Fleming Professor at Georgia Tech, former Director of Mitsubishi Electric Research Lab, "Just Another Pretty Visualization? or The What, Where, When, Why, and How of Evaluating Visualization"
Pat Hanrahan, Canon USA Professor at Stanford University and Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering, "Towards Automating Graphic Design"
Chuck Hansen, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Utah and winner of the IEEE Visualization Technical Achievement Award, "The Future of Large-Scale Scientific Visualization"
Arie Kaufman, IEEE Fellow, recipient of the IEEE Visualization Career Award, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at SUNY Stony Brook, and developer of the virtual colonoscopy procedure, "Virtual Colonoscopy"
Daniel Keim, Chair of Information Processing, University of Konstanz, leader in information visualization, "Scalability in Visual Data Exploration: Learning from Human Information Processing"
Kent Larson, Director, Changing Places, MIT Media Lab and College of Architecture, leading researcher in responsive design and acclaimed author on unbuilt masterworks, "Visualizing Unbuilt Architectural Masterworks"
William Ribarsky, Bank of America Endowed Chair and Director of the Charlotte Visualization Center, "Knowledge Visualization"
Jim Thomas, Laboratory Fellow, Pacific Northwest National Lab, and Director of the National Visualization and Analytics Center, "Visual Analytics: a Grand Challenge in Science - Turning Information Overload into the Opportunity of the Decade"

There will also be a panel, "Other Thoughts on the Future of Visualization" with Fred Brooks, Kenan Professor at UNC Chapel Hill, Larry Hodges, CS Department Chair at UNC Charlotte, and Agus Sudjianto, Senior Vice President in charge of Risk Management at Bank of America.

The new Visualization faculty (Robert Kosara, Aidong Lu, Zachary Wartell, and Jing Yang) will also make presentations on their work. See the schedule for details.


Driving Directions
  • From north of Charlotte via I-85
    Take exit 45A (Harris Blvd). Merge onto Harris, go 1 mile to the exit for UNC Charlotte/Hwy 49. At bottom of exit ramp, turn left on 49; campus is 1 mile on left.


  • From north of Charlotte via I-77
    Take exit 18 (Harris Blvd). Turn left onto Harris and go 7 miles to the exit for UNC Charlotte/Hwy 49. At bottom of exit ramp, turn left on 49; campus is 1 mile on left.


  • From south of Charlotte via I-85
    Take exit 45A (Harris Blvd). Turn right onto Harris and go one mile to the exit for UNC Charlotte\Hwy 49. At bottom of exit ramp, turn left on 49; campus is 1 mile on left.


  • From south of Charlotte via I-77
    Take I-77N to I-85N and follow above directions via I-85.


  • From east of Charlotte via US 74
    Turn right onto Harris Blvd, and travel 9 miles to UNC Charlotte\Hwy 49 exit. At bottom of exit ramp, turn left on 49; campus is 1 mile on left.


  • From Concord area via US 29
    Turn left onto Harris Blvd and go 1/2 mile to UNC Charlotte\Hwy 49 exit. At bottom of exit ramp, turn left on 49; campus is 1 mile on left.


  • Enter campus from the main entrance at the traffic light (with the big UNC Charlotte sign). Follow the signs to "Visualization Symposium". Once on campus bear left and then turn left on University Rd. Park in the Cone Visitor's Deck. Walk across the bridge to the Cone Center and follow the signs to McKnight Auditorium.


Accommodations
For attendees requiring overnight accommodation, please contact either one of the Marriott Properties in the vicinity (704-547-1122) or the local Hilton (704-547-7444).

Attendees should mention that they are attending the VisCenter Symposium at UNC Charlotte in order to learn of any special rates that may be available.