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Visual analytics

What is it?

Data can be analysed in different ways and the most simple method is to create a visual or graph and look at it to spot patterns. This is called visual analytics and is an integrated approach that combines data analysis with data visualisation and human interaction.

Data is produced at an alarming rate. In 1981 futurist and inventor Buckminster Fuller proposed the ‘knowledge doubling curve’ to explain the fact that the more knowledge we accumulate the faster we create more knowledge. Up until the end of the nineteenth century human knowledge doubled every one hundred years or so. By the end of the Second World War the total knowledge of mankind was doubling every 25 years. Today it is thought to be every 13 months ...

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