This is a friendly reminder: the VAST challenge submission deadline is fast approaching. For more information, please visit http://ieeevis.org/year/2015/info/call-participation/vast-challenge. *VAST Challenge 2015 Call for Participation* Announcing the VAST Challenge 2015! All data are now available. See http://vacommunity.org/VASTchallenge2015 for details. This year’s VAST Challenge presents two related mini-challenges and an overall Grand Challenge for your consideration. The challenges are open to teams and individuals in academia, industry, and government. This year, we would like to encourage participants create innovative visualizations to support their analyses of the data. There will be many different features within the data sets that could use creative approaches, so even if your particular approach doesn’t address the entire Challenge problem set, please enter and show us your new ways of working with this data. *Background* *Note: This scenario and all the people, places, groups, technologies, contained therein are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, places, groups, or technologies is purely coincidental.* DinoFun World is a modest-sized park amusement park, sitting on about 215 hectares and hosting thousands of visitors each day. It has a small town feel, but it is well known for its exciting rides and events. One event last year was a weekend tribute to Scott Jones, internationally renowned football (“soccer,” in US terminology) star. Scott is from a town nearby DinoFun World. DinoFun World declared “Scott Jones Weekend” where he was scheduled to appear in two stage shows each on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to talk about his life and career. In addition, a show of memorabilia from his career would be displayed in the park’s Pavilion. However, the event did not go as planned. Scott’s weekend was marred by crime and mayhem perpetrated by a poor, misguided and disgruntled figure from Scott’s past. While the crimes were rapidly solved, park officials and law enforcement figures are interested in understanding what happened during that weekend to better prepare themselves for future events. They are interested in understanding how people move and communicate in the park, as well as how patterns change and evolve over time, and what can be understood about the motivations for changing patterns. *The Challenges* *Mini-Challenge 1 * Mini-Challenge 1 focuses on movement of people around the park. You are asked to characterize the movement of groups and individuals, with a special emphasis on what might be relevant to better understanding the incident that occurred in June 2014. Please visit VAST Challenge 2015: Mini-Challenge 1 <http://vacommunity.org/2015+VAST+Challenge%3A+MC1> for more information and to download the data. *Mini-Challenge 2 * Mini-Challenge 2 asks you to dive into the communications over time that took place among the park visitors using the park app. Linkages between visitors and among park patrons and park staff could reveal behaviors of interest. Please visit VAST Challenge 2015: Mini-Challenge 2 <http://vacommunity.org/2015+VAST+Challenge%3A+MC2> for more information and to download the data. *The Grand Challenge * The Grand Challenge requires you to blend your knowledge obtained from the two mini-challenges to answer questions of interest to law enforcement officials. How was the crime executed and who was responsible? Please visit VAST Challenge 2015: Grand Challenge <http://vacommunity.org/2015+VAST+Challenge%3A+Grand+Challenge> for more information. *For Further Information* For more information, please see http://vacommunity.org/VASTchallenge2015 or contact vast-challenge@ieeevis.org. The submission deadline is July 7, 2015. We look forward to seeing your creative solutions! *VAST Challenge Committee co-chairs* Kris Cook, Georges Grinstein, and Mark Whiting Best regards, - Jian ------------------------------------------------------------- Jian Chen, PhD, Assistant Prof. CSEE, University of Maryland Baltimore County http://www.csee.umbc.edu/~jichen