1. Chapter 1 The Seven Stages of Visualizing Data

   1. Why Data Display Requires Planning

   2. An Example

   3. Iteration and Combination

   4. Principles

   5. Onward

2. Chapter 2 Getting Started with Processing

   1. Sketching with Processing

   2. Exporting and Distributing Your Work

   3. Examples and Reference

   4. Functions

   5. Sketching and Scripting

   6. Ready?

3. Chapter 3 Mapping

   1. Drawing a Map

   2. Locations on a Map

   3. Data on a Map

   4. Using Your Own Data

   5. Next Steps

4. Chapter 4 Time Series

   1. Milk, Tea, and Coffee (Acquire and Parse)

   2. Cleaning the Table (Filter and Mine)

   3. A Simple Plot (Represent and Refine)

   4. Labeling the Current Data Set (Refine and Interact)

   5. Drawing Axis Labels (Refine)

   6. Choosing a Proper Representation (Represent and Refine)

   7. Using Rollovers to Highlight Points (Interact)

   8. Ways to Connect Points (Refine)

   9. Text Labels As Tabbed Panes (Interact)

   10. Interpolation Between Data Sets (Interact)

   11. End of the Series

5. Chapter 5 Connections and Correlations

   1. Changing Data Sources

   2. Problem Statement

   3. Preprocessing

   4. Using the Preprocessed Data (Acquire, Parse, Filter, Mine)

   5. Displaying the Results (Represent)

   6. Returning to the Question (Refine)

   7. Sophisticated Sorting: Using Salary As a Tiebreaker (Mine)

   8. Moving to Multiple Days (Interact)

   9. Smoothing Out the Interaction (Refine)

   10. Deployment Considerations (Acquire, Parse, Filter)

6. Chapter 6 Scatterplot Maps

   1. Preprocessing

   2. Loading the Data (Acquire and Parse)

   3. Drawing a Scatterplot of Zip Codes (Mine and Represent)

   4. Highlighting Points While Typing (Refine and Interact)

   5. Show the Currently Selected Point (Refine)

   6. Progressively Dimming and Brightening Points (Refine)

   7. Zooming In (Interact)

   8. Changing How Points Are Drawn When Zooming (Refine)

   9. Deployment Issues (Acquire and Refine)

   10. Next Steps

7. Chapter 7 Trees, Hierarchies, and Recursion

   1. Using Recursion to Build a Directory Tree

   2. Using a Queue to Load Asynchronously (Interact)

   3. An Introduction to Treemaps

   4. Which Files Are Using the Most Space?

   5. Viewing Folder Contents (Interact)

   6. Improving the Treemap Display (Refine)

   7. Flying Through Files (Interact)

   8. Next Steps

8. Chapter 8 Networks and Graphs

   1. Simple Graph Demo

   2. A More Complicated Graph

   3. Approaching Network Problems

   4. Advanced Graph Example

   5. Mining Additional Information

9. Chapter 9 Acquiring Data

   1. Where to Find Data

   2. Tools for Acquiring Data from the Internet

   3. Locating Files for Use with Processing

   4. Loading Text Data

   5. Dealing with Files and Folders

   6. Listing Files in a Folder

   7. Asynchronous Image Downloads

   8. Using openStream( ) As a Bridge to Java

   9. Dealing with Byte Arrays

   10. Advanced Web Techniques

   11. Using a Database

   12. Dealing with a Large Number of Files

10. Chapter 10 Parsing Data

    1. Levels of Effort

    2. Tools for Gathering Clues

    3. Text Is Best

    4. Text Markup Languages

    5. Regular Expressions (regexps)

    6. Grammars and BNF Notation

    7. Compressed Data

    8. Vectors and Geometry

    9. Binary Data Formats

    10. Advanced Detective Work

11. Chapter 11 Integrating Processing with Java

    1. Programming Modes

    2. Additional Source Files (Tabs)

    3. The Preprocessor

    4. API Structure

    5. Embedding PApplet into Java Applications

    6. Using Java Code in a Processing Sketch

    7. Using Libraries

    8. Building with the Source for processing.core

1. Bibliography

2. Colophon

The animal on the cover of Visualizing Data is a Northern hawk owl (Surnia ulula). They are called Northern hawk owls because they are largely found in the boreal forests of North America and Eurasia, and because of their behavioral similarities to the hawk; they fly, hover, and soar low over open areas searching for prey. Also, more like hawks than owls, they predominantly use their sight, rather than their hearing, when hunting.

They are widely dispersed geographically, found from Eurasia to Norway, Sweden, and Finland; east through Siberia to Kamchatka; and in North China and Central Asia as far south as Tien Shan. In North America, they can be found from Alaska east to Labrador, Canada. They breed wherever food is plentiful; when food is scarce, they (most the young owls) may fly south of their normal distribution.

Medium-size owls, they are usually between 36-41cm long with a wingspan between 22-25cm wide. Typically, males weigh between 273-326g and females weigh more, between 306-392g. The sexes are very similar in appearance and can be most easily distinguished by their calls. The typical male call is a fast, melodious, purring trill; although the female call is similar, it has a higher pitch and is less clear.

Their heads are round and their faces whitish, bordered on each side with a thick black stripe. The upper half of their body is generally dark gray and black, with a densely spotted forehead and crown. Their tails are long with white stripes. Their bills are yellow and they have pale yellow eyes. (Young owls have golden yellow eyes that turn paler as they age.)

Northern hawk owls--unlike most other owls--are typically diurnal, meaning they hunt during the day. They feed on small mammals, such as lemmings, voles, and rabbits. Other prey includes birds, frogs, and even fish. Often, they sit on a perch--in a conspicuous spot--scoping out potential targets. Once prey is spotted, they quickly take flight and swoop down to attack. When food is plentiful, they catch an excess and hide it for later.

Their nesting period begins in April and lasts through the first of May. Males scope out potential nesting sites, and females select the spot. (They are monogamous throughout the mating season.) Potential sites include empty woodpecker holes; abandoned squirrel, crow, and hawk nests; and rotting trees. They lay between 3-13 eggs at 1 to 2 day intervals, and incubate the eggs for approximately 25 to 30 days. The males feed the females during the incubation period. Chicks leave the nest after about 25 days and can fly well by the time they are 6 weeks old.

More research is necessary to better understand Northern hawk owls--one of the least researched bird species in North America--and their habitat needs and migration patterns. Habitat destruction is a major threat to them. The removal of dead trees and stumps deprives these owls of the nesting areas they need to procreate. Other concerns include poaching (even though they are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which makes it illegal to harm or kill certain migratory bird species) and collisions with power lines and vehicles.

The cover image is from Johnson's Natural History. The cover font is Adobe ITC Garamond. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed.