
The 6th Visual Analytics Science and Technology (VAST) Challenge posed three mini-challenges for participants to solve using a combination of visual analytics software and their own analytic reasoning abilities. Teams could solve one, two, or all three mini-challenges and assess the overall situation to enter the Grand Challenge. Mini-challenge one involved the characterization of the spread of an epidemic using given maps, geospatial and text data gathered from micro-blog tweets. Mini-challenge two involved the development of situation awareness data to identify issues in the computer networking operations at a freight shipping company. Mini-challenge three involved the exploration of a corpus of news articles to examine terrorist threats to a metropolitan area. The Grand Challenge was to determine whether the epidemic spread, the network events, and the potential terrorist groups identified in the mini-challenges were related. The Challenge received 56 submissions, drew participants from 11 different countries, and gave 12 awards.
There will also be a VAST Challenge Workshop Session on Sunday, October 23, where all VisWeek attendees are invited to attend the open session from 2:00 to 5:30pm in the Bristol/Kent Meeting Rooms of the Westin Providence Hotel. Click HERE for agenda details.
The problem proposed for the IEEE Visualization Contest 2011 was focussed on the stability visualization of fluid dynamics. Three comprehensive data sets were provided along with relevant questions. There were a total of 6 submissions. The quality of all submission was very good overall.
For each paper, at least 5 reviews have been made by visualization experts and domain experts.
All contributions can be found at http://viscontest.sdsc.edu/2011/
The VisContest committee has determined that there will be one winner and one honorable mention as follows:
Winner
Visualizing Unsteady Vortical Behavior of a Centrifugal Pump
Mathias Otto, Alexander Kuhn, Wito Engelke, Holger Theisel
Honorable mention
Visualization of Vortex Core Differences between Ensemble Simulations
Alexis Yee Lyn Chan, Joohwi Lee, Russell M. Taylor II
The winning team will receive:
The honorary mention team will receive:
For more information visit the contest website at
http://viscontest.sdsc.edu/2011/
Jan Klein (chair)
Gabriel Zachmann (co-chair)