Guest Editors' Introduction: Special Section on the IEEE Conference on Visual Analytics Science and Technology (VAST)

Visual Analytics (VA) is an evolving field that, at its core, is directed to the science of analytical reasoning supported by highly interactive visual interfaces. The IEEE Conference on Visual Analytics Science and Technology (IEEE VAST), founded in 2006 as the IEEE Symposium on Visual Analytics Science and Technology, is the first international conference dedicated to advances in Visual Analytics Science and Technology. The IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG) has recognized and honored the importance of Visual Analytics from the beginning, and invites the authors of the best conference papers to submit substantively extended versions of VAST papers to the journal. For these papers, TVCG applies the usual standard in asking for more than 30% new material and insights compared to the conference paper. This special section presents the extended versions of the best papers of IEEE VAST 2011, which took place in October 2011 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. These papers were selected together with the best paper award selection committee, which was composed of three members who reviewed the top papers and their peer reviews. The three selected papers went through the regular and standard reviewing process of TVCG. The papers presented here reflect the diversity of the growing field of visual analytics. Collectively, the set of papers exemplify three components that are central to visual analytics as a field. the Guest Editors then provide an overview of the technical articles and features presented in this issue.