Milestones in Data Visualization

• Activity Number: 53
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 11, 2002 : 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
• Sponsor: ASA
• Author(s): Michael Friendly*+ and Daniel Denis
• Affiliation(s): York University and York University

Abstract

Our Milestones Project (http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/milestone/) is intended to document the significant developments in the history of data visualization, broadly construed, which attempts to span the entire development of visual thinking and the visual representation of data, and which collate the contributions of disparate disciplines. One goal is to provide a flexible, and useful multi-media resource, containing descriptions of events and developments, illustrative images, and links to related sources (Web and in print) or more detailed commentaries.

This history has antecedants in the earliest map-making and geographical measurement, but essentially starts with thematic cartography (depicting geologic, economic, social, medical, etc, information on a map), together with the wide-spread collection of statistical data, followed by the advent of statistical theory and methods. By the early 19th century, most of the modern forms of statistical graphics had been invented, but it required the combination of useful data, statistical methods, and technologies for (re)producing images and graphics for data visualization methods to be widely used, by the end of the 19th century. This poster illustrates some of the significant achievements in this history.