The IEEE Vis computer science conference (previously VisWeek) is in Atlanta, Georgia this year. The conference is the best place to learn about new developments in data visualization, with highly informative presentations on much of the visualization research that has been done in the past year. The conference is a week-long bounty of ideas and techniques to improve how we do visualization. More than 1000 participants attended last year, and the numbers have been steadily growing. The conference has been largely academic in the past, but the role of industry and government is increasing. The organizers are including more practitioner-useful workshops and tutorials (last year included a day-long session on D3, and another on color selection). In addition to the workshops, and the past year’s research being presented, it is also a great opportunity to network with researchers looking for meaningful problems to solve. Often, the work that practitioners do… keep reading