Hi, I'm Kalina Borkiewicz. I'm AJ Christensen. We are visualization programmers in the advanced visualization laboratory at the National Center for Super-computing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Between the two of us we have 15 years of experience, programming and designing visualizations for museums, TV documentaries and theatrical science films. Our team takes 3D scientific data collected by or created by scientists and turns them into cinematic time evolving animations for public outreach. We've contributed visualizations to many films and documentaries including the IMAX film, a Beautiful Planet, narrated by Jennifer Lawrence. The Fulldome Show Solar Superstorms narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch. I even spent time working on the scientifically motivated black hole effects in the academy award winning film Interstellar. Scientific visualization is an important field because it's one of the main ways that people can analyze and understand complex data sets. In this class, we're going to show you how to make 3D data visualizations from start to finish, and show you examples of our teams work. In week 1, we'll learn about different types of visualizations and the components that make up a scientific visualization. We'll learn what separates a good visualization from a bad visualization. In week 2, we'll learn how to digitize real-world objects and how data is represented in a virtual 3D space. We'll learn how to work with large data-sets in different types of visualization software, including how to manage your computer memory and other resources. In week 3, we'll learn how to effectively communicate with data which includes understanding your audience, exploring your data-set to find interesting features, mapping numbers to colors and other visual attributes, dealing with artifacts and different methods of representation. In week 4, we'll learn how to make your data look good by borrowing tricks and techniques from Hollywood. Things like camera design, lighting and layering multiple elements together. We'll finish off with a discussion of how to distribute your visualization on the internet or on a larger scale. Each week, you can expect videos, multiple choice quizzes, a conceptual assignment that'll test your understanding of the material and a hands-on assignment that'll give you the opportunity to create your own visualizations. At the end of this course, you will be literate in 3D data visualization. You will understand how to create educational visualizations that maintain scientific accuracy and that appeal to broad audiences. You will learn the practicality of working with data and how to work with image-making software. You'll not only learn the how, but also the why. Throughout the course, we'll discuss elements of storytelling, education, communication, color theory and ethics that will help you understand visualization best practices. Thanks for taking the course. We hope you enjoy it. See you in the next video.
