UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2017/2018
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN
DATA ANALYTICS
MDA 5304 VISUAL ANALYTICS SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE
DATE: AUGUST, 2018 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer Question One & ANY OTHER TWO questions.
QUESTION ONE [20 MARKS]
a) Explain the history and development of the fields of information visualization and visual
analytics, clearly distinguishing between the goals of each of them.
(6 Marks)
b) Explain the relevance of computer graphics principles of graphics data structures and
geometrical transformations to the development of the discipline of visual analytics.
QUESTION TWO [15 MARKS]
a) Discuss the role(s) of Software Architecture to the Software Development Process.
(5 Marks)
b) Briefly outline some of the major Visual Analytics Software Architectures.
(5 Marks)
c) Discuss the challenges of designing software architecture for visual analytics systems.
(5 Marks)
QUESTION THREE [15 MARKS]
a) Discuss the role of software frameworks to the development of visual analytics
applications.
(5 Marks)
b) Review the major visual analytics software frameworks .
(10 Marks)
QUESTION FOUR [15 MARKS]
The tree below represents a Quadtree subdivision of a square. The left most branch is the upper
left quarter, the next branch is the upper right, the third branch is the lower left, and the right
most branch is the bottom left of a region. The leaf nodes are labeled A-J.
a) Subdivide the square below to indicate the subdivision of the quad
c) Using figure and tables, illustrate an example of a topological vector data structure that
can be used in a typical car navigation system.
