VAST Challenge 2025

The 2025 VAST Challenge Contest will be held in conjunction with the the IEEE VIS 2025 Conference in Vienna.

Workshop Agenda

Monday, November 3rd 2:00pm - 5:30pm (CET), Room: Hall M2

2:00 – 3:30 Session 1

2:00 - 2:05: Welcome (J. Cottam, PNNL)
2:05 - 2:10: Mini-Challenge 2 (MC2) Introduction (J. Cottam, PNNL)
2:10 - 2:25: 🏆 MC2 Award for Elegant Visual Metaphor (P. Müller and T. Schulze, UKON)
2:25 - 2:30: Mini-Challenge 3 (MC3) Introduction (J. Cottam, PNNL)
2:30 - 2:45: 🏆 MC3 Award for Innovative Display of Daily Communication Patterns (A. De la Puente, FGV)
2:45 - 2:50: Design Challenge (DC) Introduction (S. Gomez, MIT-LL)
2:50 - 3:02: 🏅 DC Honorable Mention for Intuitive Support for Query Construction (D. Wootton, MIT)
3:02 - 3:17: 🏆 DC Award for Expressive Design (S. Qaiser, Purdue)

3:30 – 4:00 ☕ Coffee Break

4:00 – 5:30 Session 2

4:00 - 4:05: Mini-Challenge 1 (MC1) Introduction (S. Gomez, MIT-LL)
4:05 - 4:17: 🏅 MC1 Honorable Mention for Excellence in Analytical Dashboards (M. Hou, Fudan)
4:17 - 4:32: 🏆 MC1 Award for Comprehensive Treatment of Time (H. Y. Zong, Purdue)
4:32 - 4:44: 🏅 MC3 Honorable Mention for Effective Integration of Tools and Encodings (X. Zhou, Fudan)
4:45 - 5:15: Keynote: Prof. R. Jordan Crouser (Kenyon College)
5:15 - 5:20: 2025 Closing and Adjourn (S. Gomez, MIT-LL)

Challenge Overview

Welcome back to Oceanus! VAST 2025 will return to the island nation famous for fishing and quiet seaside communities. Since our last visit to Oceanus, change has been brewing. The rise of a global music superstar from the island led to a rise in tourism and a decline in the traditional way of life.

In Mini-Challenge 1, participants will be provided a knowledge graph of containing recording artists, albums, collaborations, concerts, influences, and more. The goal will be to develop visual analytics approaches to trace the rise of one artist and predict who will be next to break out.
In Mini-Challenge 2, participants will take on the theme of conflict over societal change directly. Two opposing groups representing the fishing and tourism industries are vying for economic development funding and accusing a local government board of bias. Participants will be asked to reconstruct a true timeline with data that comes from both sides.
In Mini-Challenge 3, participants will be provided a knowledge graph created from transcripts of boat radio communications and asked to identify people, their roles, and the events and locations they talk about to predict when and where an event will take place.
Finally, this year’s competition will include a dedicated Design Challenge. Participants will be asked to design radically new knowledge graph visualizations. Submissions will focus on the design process and will not require any functional data processing.

~~Submissions due: EXTENDED 22 July, 2025 at 11:59 pm AOE~~