Project SunSpot: Fishing Cycle Analysis and Detection for Tackling the 2024 VAST Challenge

The SunSpot project is a comprehensive solution to address the 2024 IEEE VAST Challenge MC2, focusing on detecting abnormal vessel activities. Our method integrated data on fishing records, vessel trajectories, commodity-vessel relationships, and fish distributions. We created a set of visualizations to help analysts better understand the characteristics of the area, vessels, and fishing activities. We considered a vessel’s departure from and return to a harbor as a basic cycle of activity and classified these cycles into patterns based on location and dwell time. By visualizing the spatial and temporal aspects of these cycles, we effectively distinguished illegal fishing from normal fishing activities. Our solution highlights the strengths of a multidirectional approach in data analytics, incorporating vessel information, fish origins, exported commodities, and shipping ports. Index Terms: Visual Analytics-Spatial-Temporal Analysis