Design exercise #2

CS 348C - Visualizing Computer Systems
Fall Quarter, 1996
Marc Levoy
Assigned
Thursday, October 3
Due
Tuesday, October 8, in class

You suspect that convection patterns on the surface of the sun are shifting on a scale of several centuries. You expect these shifts to change the way sunspots drift toward the solar equator during each 22-year cycle, i.e. the shape of the "butterfly wings" in the Maunder diagram, but you're not sure what sort of change might occur. Propose a visualization that would test your hypothesis and would also help you explore the nature of the change. Feel free to start from any of the sunspot visualizations in Tufte's book. As before, describe and sketch your solution. One page is enough.