In a second paper, Zhang and Korfhage present a visualization model which can display both distance and angle measures simultaneously and handle both conjunction and intersection. Changing the slope and position of a straight line in the visualization space results in a modification of the threshold-defined contour in the document vector space and thus expands or contracts the scope and emphasis of the retrieved set. This Perspectives issue is assembled to provide an historical background to visualization in information retrieval. It is a review of the assumptions and technology configurations by which the current literature may be interpreted. The techniques of the authors of this issue differ, but all treat their techniques as manuals of description flowing from a history of common mathematical and technical influences.
All technologies have histories of development.
The historical forces of visualization frame the current efforts and comprise the field in which new problem dimensions are addressed. No field of scientific inquiry emerges without a background. This issue adds to the depth necessary for the study of visualization by new students and new scholars. The first visual interface to a collection was designed and implemented at the Johnson Space Center of NASA in the years 1988-1992. The system remained in use for two years, but eventually failed because no automatic method to assign terms to images could be discovered, and the manual cost of such term assignment was too great to be supported.