The Visualization and Graphics Group (VIG), led by prof. dr. Alexandru C. Telea, creates visual analysis and rendering tools and methods to help scientists and researchers better process and understand large, multi-dimensional, and relational datasets in domains such as neuroscience, genomics, software engineering, astronomy, and medicine.

Our mission is to empower experts, as well as non-data scientists, to solve big data problems through visualizations, interaction concepts, data mining techniques, and realistic rendering methods.

VIG is part of the Department of Information and Computing Science, Utrecht University.

Research

• visualization for AI (dimensionality reduction, explaining machine learning)
• big data multiscale visualization (hierarchies, graphs, trails, tables)
• visualization in practice (decision making, user studies)
• information visualization and visual analytics (techniques, system design, evaluation)
• photorealistic computer graphics (techniques, evaluation)
• shape/image processing (skeletonization, segmentation, fairing, reconstruction)
• scientific visualization (fluid simulation, GPU- and PDE-based techniques)

Latest Publications (full list here)

2026

	S. van Wageningen, A. Telea, T. Mchedlidze (2026) Same Stats, Different Graphs Made Simple and Fast by Linear Transformations. In Proc. EuroVA
	F. Grötschla, S. van Wageningen, A. Telea (2026) GNN-Based Inductive Dimensionality Reduction on UMAP Graphs. In Proc. GDxDR. Eurographics
	I. Hartskeerl, F. Grötschla, A. Telea (2026) Multivariate Graph Layouts Using NNP-NET. In Proc. GDxDR. Eurographics
	S. van Wageningen, L. van der Jagt, A. Telea (2026) Stochastic Gradient Descent for 3D Graph Drawings, $SGD^3$ In Proc. EuroVis - Short Papers. Eurographics
	L. Watkin, D. Archambault, A. Telea (2026) ShapDBM: Exploring Decision Boundary Maps in Shapley Space. arXiv:2603.22235 [cs.HC]

Teaching

We teach (and taught) many courses spanning all areas of visualization and graphics and for different audiences (BSc/MSc/PhD students, professionals). Details here.

Students

We have supervised many students at all levels (BSc/MSc/PhD). Selected key results here.

Research valorization

Our work has led to two innovative start-ups

• SolidSource (2006-2012): Tools and services for the visual analysis of big software data for industrial software maintenance
• GraphPolaris (2024-present): Tools and services for analyzing and visualizing large relational data