DevLan/vispubs huggingface dataset:
An evaluation of content browsing techniques for hierarchical space-filling visualizations
Authors: Kang Shi, Pourang Irani, Pak Ching Li
Published at InfoVis, 2005

Space-filling visualizations, such as the TreeMap, are well suited for displaying the properties of nodes in hierarchies. To browse the contents of the hierarchy, the primary mode of interaction is by drilling down through many successive layers. In this paper we introduce a distortion algorithm based on fisheye and continuous zooming techniques for browsing data in the TreeMap representation. The motivation behind the distortion approach is for assisting users to rapidly browse information displayed in the TreeMap without opening successive layers of the hierarchy. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the new approach. In the first experiment (N=20) the distortion approach is compared to the drill down method. Results show that subjects are quicker and more accurate in locating targets of interest using the distortion method. The second experiment (N=12) evaluates the effectiveness of the two approaches in a task requiring context, we define as the context browsing task. The results show that subjects are quicker and more accurate in locating targets with the distortion technique in the context browsing task.
An interactive 3D integration of parallel coordinates and star glyphs
Authors: Elena Fanea, Sheelagh Carpendale, Tobias Isenberg 0001
Published at InfoVis, 2005

Parallel coordinates are a powerful method for visualizing multidimensional data but, when applied to large data sets, they become cluttered and difficult to read. Star glyphs, on the other hand, can be used to display either the attributes of a data item or the values across all items for a single attribute. Star glyphs may readily provide a quick impression; however, since the full data set require multiple glyphs, overall readings are more difficult. We present parallel glyphs, an interactive integration of the visual representations of parallel coordinates and star glyphs that utilizes the advantages of both representations to offset the disadvantages they have separately. We discuss the role of uniform and stepped colour scales in the visual comparison of non-adjacent items and star glyphs. Parallel glyphs provide capabilities for focus-in-context exploration using two types of lenses and interactions specific to the 3D space.
An optimization-based approach to dynamic visual context management
Authors: Zhen Wen, Michelle X. Zhou, Vikram Aggarwal
Published at InfoVis, 2005

We are building an intelligent multimodal conversation system to aid users in exploring large and complex data sets. To tailor to diverse user queries introduced during a conversation, we automate the generation of system responses, including both spoken and visual outputs. In this paper, we focus on the problem of visual context management, a process that dynamically updates an existing visual display to effectively incorporate new information requested by subsequent user queries. Specifically, we develop an optimization based approach to visual context management. Compared to existing approaches, which normally handle predictable visual context updates, our work offers two unique contributions. First, we provide a general computational framework that can effectively manage a visual context for diverse, unanticipated situations encountered in a user system conversation. Moreover, we optimize the satisfaction of both semantic and visual constraints, which otherwise are difficult to balance using simple heuristics. Second, we present an extensible representation model that uses feature based metrics to uniformly define all constraints. We have applied our work to two different applications and our evaluation has shown the promise of this work.
Baby names, visualization, and social data analysis
Authors: Martin Wattenberg
Published at InfoVis, 2005

The Name Voyager, a Web based visualization of historical trends in baby naming, has proven remarkably popular. This paper discusses the interaction techniques it uses for smooth visual exploration of thousands of time series. We also describe design decisions behind the application and lessons learned in creating an application that makes do-it-yourself data mining popular. The prime lesson, it is hypothesized, is that an information visualization tool may be fruitfully viewed not as a tool but as part of an online social environment. In other words, to design a successful exploratory data analysis tool, one good strategy is to create a system that enables "social" data analysis
Dig-CoLa: directed graph layout through constrained energy minimization
Authors: Tim Dwyer, Yehuda Koren
Published at InfoVis, 2005

We describe a new method for visualization of directed graphs. The method combines constraint programming techniques with a high performance force directed placement (FDP) algorithm so that the directed nature of the graph is highlighted while useful properties of FDP - such as emphasis of symmetries and preservation of proximity relations - are retained. Our algorithm automatically identifies those parts of the digraph that contain hierarchical information and draws them accordingly. Additionally, those parts that do not contain hierarchy are drawn at the same quality expected from a nonhierarchical, undirected layout algorithm. An interesting application of our algorithm is directional multidimensional scaling (DMDS). DMDS deals with low dimensional embedding of multivariate data where we want to emphasize the overall flow in the data (e.g. chronological progress) along one of the axes.
Dynamic visualization of graphs with extended labels
Authors: Pak Chung Wong, Patrick Mackey, Ken Perrine, James R. Eagan, Harlan Foote, James J. Thomas
Published at InfoVis, 2005

The paper describes a novel technique to visualize graphs with extended node and link labels. The lengths of these labels range from a short phrase to a full sentence to an entire paragraph and beyond. Our solution is different from all the existing approaches that almost always rely on intensive computational effort to optimize the label placement problem. Instead, we share the visualization resources with the graph and present the label information in static, interactive, and dynamic modes without the requirement for tackling the intractability issues. This allows us to reallocate the computational resources for dynamic presentation of real time information. The paper includes a user study to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the visualization technique.
Elastic hierarchies: combining treemaps and node-link diagrams
Authors: Shengdong Zhao, Michael J. McGuffin, Mark H. Chignell
Published at InfoVis, 2005

We investigate the use of elastic hierarchies for representing trees, where a single graphical depiction uses a hybrid mixture, or "interleaving", of more basic forms at different nodes of the tree. In particular, we explore combinations of node link and treemap forms, to combine the space efficiency of treemaps with the structural clarity of node link diagrams. A taxonomy is developed to characterize the design space of such hybrid combinations. A software prototype is described, which we used to explore various techniques for visualizing, browsing and interacting with elastic hierarchies, such as side by side overview and detail views, highlighting and rubber banding across views, visualization of multiple foci, and smooth animations across transitions. The paper concludes with a discussion of the characteristics of elastic hierarchies and suggestions for research on their properties and uses.
Flow map layout
Authors: Doantam Phan, Ling Xiao, Ron B. Yeh, Pat Hanrahan, Terry Winograd
Published at InfoVis, 2005

Cartographers have long used flow maps to show the movement of objects from one location to another, such as the number of people in a migration, the amount of goods being traded, or the number of packets in a network. The advantage of flow maps is that they reduce visual clutter by merging edges. Most flow maps are drawn by hand and there are few computer algorithms available. We present a method for generating flow maps using hierarchical clustering given a set of nodes, positions, and flow data between the nodes. Our techniques are inspired by graph layout algorithms that minimize edge crossings and distort node positions while maintaining their relative position to one another. We demonstrate our technique by producing flow maps for network traffic, census data, and trade data.
Graph-theoretic scagnostics
Authors: Leland Wilkinson, Anushka Anand, Robert L. Grossman
Published at InfoVis, 2005

We introduce Tukey and Tukey scagnostics and develop graph-theoretic methods for implementing their procedure on large datasets.
Highlighting conflict dynamics in event data
Authors: Ulrik Brandes, Daniel Fleischer, Jürgen Lerner
Published at InfoVis, 2005

We present a method for visual summary of bilateral conflict structures embodied in event data. Such data consists of actors linked by time stamped events, and may be extracted from various sources such as news reports and dossiers. When analyzing political events, it is of particular importance to be able to recognize conflicts and actors involved in them. By projecting actors into a conflict space, we are able to highlight the main opponents in a series of tens of thousands of events, and provide a graphic overview of the conflict structure. Moreover, our method allows for smooth animation of the dynamics of a conflict.
Importance-driven visualization layouts for large time series data
Authors: Ming C. Hao, Umeshwar Dayal, Daniel A. Keim, Tobias Schreck
Published at InfoVis, 2005

Time series are an important type of data with applications in virtually every aspect of the real world. Often a large number of time series have to be monitored and analyzed in parallel. Sets of time series may show intrinsic hierarchical relationships and varying degrees of importance among the individual time series. Effective techniques for visually analyzing large sets of time series should encode the relative importance and hierarchical ordering of the time series data by size and position, and should also provide a high degree of regularity in order to support comparability by the analyst. In this paper, we present a framework for visualizing large sets of time series. Based on the notion of inter time series importance relationships, we define a set of objective functions that space-filling layout schemes for time series data should obey. We develop an efficient algorithm addressing the identified problems by generating layouts that reflect hierarchy and importance based relationships in a regular layout with favorable aspect ratios. We apply our technique to a number of real world data sets including sales and stock data, and we compare our technique with an aspect ratio aware variant of the well known TreeMap algorithm. The examples show the advantages and practical usefulness of our layout algorithm.
Interactive Sankey diagrams
Authors: Patrick Riehmann, Manfred Hanfler, Bernd Fröhlich 0001
Published at InfoVis, 2005

We present a system that allows users to interactively explore complex flow scenarios represented as Sankey diagrams. Our system provides an overview of the flow graph and allows users to zoom in and explore details on demand. The support for quantitative flow tracing across the flow graph as well as representations at different levels of detail facilitate the understanding of complex flow situations. The energy flow in a city serves as a sample scenario for our system. Different forms of energy are distributed within the city and they are transformed into heat, electricity, or other forms of energy. These processes are visualized and interactively explored. In addition our system can be used as a planning tool for the exploration of alternative scenarios by interactively manipulating different parameters in the energy flow network.
Interactive visualization of genealogical graphs
Authors: Michael J. McGuffin, Ravin Balakrishnan
Published at InfoVis, 2005

The general problem of visualizing "family trees", or genealogical graphs, in 2D, is considered. A graph theoretic analysis is given, which identifies why genealogical graphs can be difficult to draw. This motivates some novel graphical representations, including one based on a dual tree, a subgraph formed by the union of two trees. Dual trees can be drawn in various styles, including an indented outline style, and allow users to browse general multitrees in addition to genealogical graphs, by transitioning between different dual tree views. A software prototype for such browsing is described, that supports smoothly animated transitions, automatic camera framing, rotation of subtrees, and a novel interaction technique for expanding or collapsing subtrees to any depth with a single mouse drag
Low-level components of analytic activity in information visualization
Authors: Robert A. Amar, James R. Eagan, John T. Stasko
Published at InfoVis, 2005

Existing system level taxonomies of visualization tasks are geared more towards the design of particular representations than the facilitation of user analytic activity. We present a set of ten low level analysis tasks that largely capture people's activities while employing information visualization tools for understanding data. To help develop these tasks, we collected nearly 200 sample questions from students about how they would analyze five particular data sets from different domains. The questions, while not being totally comprehensive, illustrated the sheer variety of analytic questions typically posed by users when employing information visualization systems. We hope that the presented set of tasks is useful for information visualization system designers as a kind of common substrate to discuss the relative analytic capabilities of the systems. Further, the tasks may provide a form of checklist for system designers.
Multivariate glyphs for multi-object clusters
Authors: Eleanor Boyle Chlan, Penny Rheingans
Published at InfoVis, 2005

Aggregating items can simplify the display of huge quantities of data values at the cost of losing information about the attribute values of the individual items. We propose a distribution glyph, in both two- and three-dimensional forms, which specifically addresses the concept of how the aggregated data is distributed over the possible range of values. It is capable of displaying distribution, variability and extent information for up to four attributes at a time of multivariate, clustered data. User studies validate the concept, showing that both glyphs are just as good as raw data and the 3D glyph is better for answering some questions.
Parallel sets: visual analysis of categorical data
Authors: Fabian Bendix, Robert Kosara, Helwig Hauser
Published at InfoVis, 2005

The discrete nature of categorical data makes it a particular challenge for visualization. Methods that work very well for continuous data are often hardly usable with categorical dimensions. Only few methods deal properly with such data, mostly because of the discrete nature of categorical data, which does not translate well into the continuous domains of space and color. Parallel sets is a new visualization method that adopts the layout of parallel coordinates, but substitutes the individual data points by a frequency based representation. This abstracted view, combined with a set of carefully designed interactions, supports visual data analysis of large and complex data sets. The technique allows efficient work with meta data, which is particularly important when dealing with categorical datasets. By creating new dimensions from existing ones, for example, the user can filter the data according to his or her current needs. We also present the results from an interactive analysis of CRM data using parallel sets. We demonstrate how the flexible layout eases the process of knowledge crystallization, especially when combined with a sophisticated interaction scheme.
PRISAD: a partitioned rendering infrastructure for scalable accordion drawing
Authors: James Slack, Kristian Hildebrand, Tamara Munzner
Published at InfoVis, 2005

We present PRISAD, the first generic rendering infrastructure for information visualization applications that use the accordion drawing technique: rubber sheet navigation with guaranteed visibility for marked areas of interest. Our new rendering algorithms are based on the partitioning of screen space, which allows us to handle dense dataset regions correctly. The algorithms in previous work led to incorrect visual representations because of overculling, and to inefficiencies due to overdrawing multiple items in the same region. Our pixel based drawing infrastructure guarantees correctness by eliminating overculling, and improves rendering performance with tight bounds on overdrawing. PRITree and PRISeq are applications built on PRISAD, with the feature sets of TreeJuxtaposer and SequenceJuxtaposer, respectively. We describe our PRITree and PRISeq dataset traversal algorithms, which are used for efficient rendering, culling, and layout of datasets within the PRISAD framework. We also discuss PRITree node marking techniques, which offer order-of-magnitude improvements to both memory and time performance versus previous range storage and retrieval techniques. Our PRITree implementation features a five fold increase in rendering speed for nontrivial tree structures, and also reduces memory requirements in some real world datasets by up to eight times, so we are able to handle trees of several million nodes. PRISeq renders fifteen times faster and handles datasets twenty times larger than previous work.
Revealing structure within clustered parallel coordinates displays
Authors: Jimmy Johansson 0001, Patric Ljung, Mikael Jern, Matthew Cooper 0001
Published at InfoVis, 2005

In order to gain insight into multivariate data, complex structures must be analysed and understood. Parallel coordinates is an excellent tool for visualizing this type of data but has its limitations. This paper deals with one of its main limitations - how to visualize a large number of data items without hiding the inherent structure they constitute. We solve this problem by constructing clusters and using high precision textures to represent them. We also use transfer functions that operate on the high precision textures in order to highlight different aspects of the cluster characteristics. Providing predefined transfer functions as well as the support to draw customized transfer functions makes it possible to extract different aspects of the data. We also show how feature animation can be used as guidance when simultaneously analysing several clusters. This technique makes it possible to visually represent statistical information about clusters and thus guides the user, making the analysis process more efficient.
Simple 3D glyphs for spatial multivariate data
Authors: Camilla Forsell, Stefan Seipel, Mats Lind
Published at InfoVis, 2005

We present an effort to evaluate the possible utility of a new type of 3D glyphs intended for visualizations of multivariate spatial data. They are based on results from vision research suggesting that our perception of metric 3D structure is distorted and imprecise relative to the actual scene before us (e.g., "metric 3D structure in visualizations" by M. Lind et al. (2003)); only a class of qualitative properties of the scene is perceived with accuracy. These properties are best characterized as being invariant over affine but not Euclidean transformations. They are related, but not identical to, the non-accidental properties (NAPs) described by Lowe in "perceptual organization and visual recognition" (1984) on which the notion of geons is based in "recognition by components - a theory of image understanding" by I. Biederman (1987). A large number of possible 3D glyphs for the visualization of spatial data can be constructed using such properties. One group is based on the local sign of surface curvature. We investigated these properties in a visualization experiment. The results are promising and the implications for visualization are discussed.
Temporal visualization of planning polygons for efficient partitioning of geo-spatial data
Authors: Poonam Shanbhag, Penny Rheingans, Marie desJardins
Published at InfoVis, 2005

Partitioning of geo-spatial data for efficient allocation of resources such as schools and emergency health care services is driven by a need to provide better and more effective services. Partitioning of spatial data is a complex process that depends on numerous factors such as population, costs incurred in deploying or utilizing resources and target capacity of a resource. Moreover, complex data such as population distributions are dynamic i.e. they may change over time. Simple animation may not effectively show temporal changes in spatial data. We propose the use of three temporal visualization techniques -wedges, rings and time slices - to display the nature of change in temporal data in a single view. Along with maximizing resource utilization and minimizing utilization costs, a partition should also ensure the long term effectiveness of the plan. We use multi-attribute visualization techniques to highlight the strengths and identify the weaknesses of a partition. Comparative visualization techniques allow multiple partitions to be viewed simultaneously. Users can make informed decisions about how to partition geo spatial data by using a combination of our techniques for multi-attribute visualization, temporal visualization and comparative visualization.
The visual code navigator: an interactive toolset for source code investigation
Authors: Gerard Lommerse, Freek Nossin, Lucian Voinea, Alexandru C. Telea
Published at InfoVis, 2005

We present the Visual Code Navigator, a set of three interrelated visual tools that we developed for exploring large source code software projects from three different perspectives, or views: the syntactic view shows the syntactic constructs in the source code. The symbol view shows the objects a file makes available after compilation, such as function signatures, variables, and namespaces. The evolution view looks at different versions in a project lifetime of a number of selected source files. The views share one code model, which combines hierarchical syntax based and line based information from multiple source files versions. We render this code model using a visual model that extends the pixel-filling, space partitioning properties of shaded cushion treemaps with novel techniques. We discuss how our views allow users to interactively answer complex questions on various code elements by simple mouse clicks. We validate the efficiency and effectiveness of our toolset by an informal user study on the source code of VTK, a large, industry-size C++ code base
Turning information visualization innovations into commercial products: lessons to guide the next success
Authors: Ben Shneiderman, Ramana Rao, Keith Andrews, Christopher Ahlberg, Dominique Brodbeck, Tony Jewitt, Jock D. Mackinlay
Published at InfoVis, 2005

As information visualization matures as an academic research field, commercial spinoffs are proliferating, but success stories are harder to find. This is the normal process of emergence for new technologies, but the panel organizers believe that there are certain strategies that facilitate success. To teach these lessons, we have invited several key figures who are seeking to commercialize information visualization tools. The panelists make short presentations, engage in a moderated discussion, and respond to audience questions.