Biplots Classical methods of graphical data visualization start from low dimensional projections of the data and try to explore and reveal higher dimensional structures by various linking techniques. This raises the question concerning 'interesting' projections in data sets. There are several methods from from multivariate statistics for this purpose such as principal component analysis or correspondence analysis. By reducing dimension according to different criteria of optimization these techniques allow to concentrate on only a few factors. But to locate structural anomalies their applicability is limited - as in different data sets dependent on the context different structures are 'special'.
Graphical methods are however extremely useful for drawing such conclusions.
The basic idea of interactive biplots is to combine those approaches. First of all graphics are a tool to visualize the theoretical methods. They give an impression of how well the method works for the underlying data as well as it reveals the said structural particularities. Once the map is read in, it can be used in the same interactive manner as all other plots. Selecting,highlighting and interrogation is defined for polygons, too.