Colin Ware

Colin Ware is the former Director of the Data Visualization Research Lab which is part of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire . He is cross appointed between the Departments of Ocean Engineering and Computer Science. Ware specializes in advanced data visualization and has a special interest in applications of visualization to Ocean Mapping. He combines interests in both basic and applied research and he has advanced degrees in both computer science (M.Math, Waterloo) and in the psychology of perception (Ph.D., Toronto).

Ware has published over 150 articles in scientific and technical journals and leading conference proceedings. Many of these articles relate to the use of color, texture, motion and 3D displays in information visualization. His approach is always to combine theory with practice and his publications range from rigorously scientific contributions to the Journal of Physiology and Vision Research to applications-oriented articles in ACM Transactions on Graphics and various visualization and human-computer Interaction Journals.

Ware likes to build useful visualization systems. A founding member of the Ocean Mapping Group at the University of New Brunswick (and lately the Ocean Mapping Center at UNH), he has been designing 3D interactive visualization systems for ocean mapping for about 25 years. He and his graduate students created the first version of the Fledermaus visualization system, now widely used in Oceanographic applications. Ware has also contributed to software system visualization. Visual Thinking book coverHe directed the development of NestedVision3D, a system for visualizing very large networks of information. Ware has been instrumental in the creation of two spinoff visualization companies based initially on his research. Interactive Visualization Systems, Inc. (now part of QPS ) makes visualization software for advanced ocean mapping applications. NVision Software Systems, Inc. provided visualization tools to enhance the understanding of large highly interconnected datasets. He is currently working on a variety of projects including ocean current visualization, the visualization of marine mammal tracks, and more theoretically, visual thinking algorithms.

Colin Ware’s has written two books: Visual Thinking for Information Design is an up to date account of the psychology of how we think using graphic displays as tools. Information Visualization: Perception for Design , now in its 4th edition, is a comprehensive survey of what human perception tells us about how to display information.

You may contact Dr. Ware at cware@ccom.unh.edu