PBS digital studios recently released a short video on data visualization. It does a great job of explaining what visualization is, and touches on the origins of our capacity to process visual information. It goes on to examine data visualization’s position in our modern culture, and muses about the future role of visualizing data in our society. Some of the industry’s most respected scholars are interviewed and offer us valuable and insightful knowledge. Edward Tufte, for example, talks about the history of visualization, and what it has meant in the past: “The history of visualizing data is very substantially a history of science.” -Edward Tufte Julie Steele talks about what issues are involved in creating data visualizations, and some of why visual information is so easily processed by humans: “We had to recognize those patterns right away and make snap decisions on them, in order to survive.” -Julie Steele Josh… keep reading