The Visual Analytics Science and Technology (VAST) Challenge, sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a yearly contest that is designed to push the forefront of visual analytics tools using benchmark data sets and to establish a forum to advance visual analytics evaluation methods. Noblis teamed up with Centrifuge Systems, Future Point Systems, Georgetown University, and Medstar to compete in this year’s Challenge.
The 2010 challenge consisted of three Mini Challenges and a Grand Challenge which endeavored to synthesize information from the Mini Challenges. This year’s topics were:
Mini Challenge 1: Text Records – Investigations into Arms Dealing
Mini Challenge 2: Hospitalization Records – Characterization of Pandemic Spread
Mini Challenge 3: Genetic Sequences – Tracing the Mutations of a Disease
Grand Challenge: Integration of Mini Challenges (the Grand Challenge combines all data sets, integrating any possible linkage between the illegal arms dealing and the pandemic outbreak.)
Noblis received outstanding reviews for all of their submissions, and received the award for Outstanding Debrief for the Grand Challenge which integrated the information from all the Mini Challenges into an overarching explanation of events in the datasets. There were 58 entries this year from businesses and academics around the world, 5 of which were for the Grand Challenge. View a list of winners.
Noblis' results will be published in the VAST 2010 Proceedings and we will present them at the IEEE VisWeek 2010 Conference in Salt Lake City in October.
View Noblis’ 2010 VAST Challenge submission.