page_title: Data visualization
section_title: History of data visualization
hierarchical_section_title: Data visualization / History of data visualization
caption_attribution_description: English: Planetary Movements, depicted as Cyclic Lines on a Spacial-Temporal Grid. In De cursu zodiacum (by Pliny?), given as an appendix to a copy of Macrobius' Commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis (CLM 14436, a convolute of four mss. of the late 10th and early 11th century for use in monastery schools; substantial portions are written by one Hartwic) This is the earliest known 2-dimensional charts (plotting time vs. celestial latitude; an apparent anomaly is that it appears to show the celestial latitude of the sun varying with time); the scribe used horizontal and vertical lines as aids, resulting in a picture strikingly similar to modern graph paper as it did not become commonly used before the mid 19th century, some 700 years later. This picture is a notable anomaly, as the earliest comparable "graph" diagram do not emerge prior to the late medieval period, some 250 years after this drawing was made. The graph was first described by Günther (1877). Literature S. Günther, "Die Anfänge und Entwickelungsstadien des Coordinatenprincipes", Abhandlungen der naturhistorischen Gesellschaft zu Nürnberg VI (1877) p. 19 H. G. Funkhouser, "A note on a tenth century graph", Osiris 1 (1936), 260-262. James R. Beniger and Dorothy L. Robyn (1978). "Quantitative graphics in statistics: A brief history", The American Statistician 32 (1978), 1–11. Nederlands: Het oudst bekende voorbeeld van een grafiek, met op de horizontale as de tijd, komt uit een manuscript uit de tiende of elfde eeuw dat aan het einde van de vorige eeuw werd teruggevonden. Het is een soort diagram dat de bewegingen van de planeten (Venus, Mercurius, etc.) aangeeft t.o.v. de Dierenriem (zie Funkhouser 1936). Om het tekenen te vergemakkelijken heeft de tekenaar de horizontale as in 30 en de verticale as in 12 stukjes verdeeld, waardoor een soort ruitjespapier is ontstaan. Het zou nog tot ongeveer 1850 duren voordat het gebruik van grafiekenpapier min of meer gemeengoed werd. Français&#160;: Description du mouvement des planètes au cours du temps, publié au Xème siècle par Macrobius dans son ouvrage Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis
context_page_description: Data visualization is the graphic representation of data. It involves producing images that communicate relationships among the represented data to viewers of the images. This communication is achieved through the use of a systematic mapping between graphic marks and data values in the creation of the visualization. This mapping establishes how data values will be represented visually, determining how and to what extent a property of a graphic mark, such as size or color, will change to reflect changes in the value of a datum.
  To communicate information clearly and efficiently, data visualization uses statistical graphics, plots, information graphics and other tools. Numerical data may be encoded using dots, lines, or bars, to visually communicate a quantitative message. Effective visualization helps users analyze and reason about data and evidence. It makes complex data more accessible, understandable and usable. Users may have particular analytical tasks, such as making comparisons or understanding causality, and the design principle of the graphic follows the task.
context_section_description: There is no comprehensive 'history' of data visualization. There are no accounts that span the entire development of visual thinking and the visual
  representation of data, and which collate the contributions of disparate disciplines. Michael Friendly and Daniel J Denis of York University are engaged in a project that attempts to provide a comprehensive history of visualization. Contrary to general belief, data visualization is not a modern development. Stellar data, or information such as location of stars were visualized on the walls of caves (such as those found in Lascaux Cave in Southern France) since the Pleistocene era. Physical artefacts such as Mesopotamian clay tokens (5500 BC), Inca quipus (2600 BC) and Marshall Islands stick charts (n.d.) can also be considered as visualizing quantitative information.
  The first documented data visualization can be tracked back to 1160 B.C. with Turin Papyrus Map which accurately illustrates the distribution of geological resources and provides information about quarrying of those resources. Such maps can be categorized as Thematic Cartography, which is a type of data visualization that presents and communicates specific data and information through a geographical illustration designed to show a particular theme connected with a specific geographic area. Earliest documented forms of data visualization were various thematic maps from different cultures and ideograms and hieroglyphs that provided and allowed interpretation of information illustrated. For example, Linear B tablets of Mycenae provided a visualization of information regarding Late Bronze Age era trades in the Mediterranean. The idea of coordinates was used by ancient Egyptian surveyors in laying out towns, earthly and heavenly positions were located by something akin to latitude and longitude at least by 200 BC, and the map projection of a spherical earth into latitude and longitude by Claudius Ptolemy [c.85–c. 165] in Alexandria would serve as reference standards until the 14th century.
  Invention of paper and parchment allowed further development of visualizations throughout history. Figure shows a graph from the 10th or possibly 11th century that is intended to be an illustration of the planetary movement, used in an appendix of a textbook in monastery schools. The graph apparently was meant to represent a plot of the inclinations of the planetary orbits as a function of the time. For this purpose the zone of the zodiac was represented on a plane with a horizontal line divided into thirty parts as the time or longitudinal axis. The vertical axis designates the width of the zodiac. The horizontal scale appears to have been chosen for each planet individually for the periods cannot be reconciled. The accompanying text refers only to the amplitudes. The curves are apparently not related in time.
  By the 16th century, techniques and instruments for precise observation and measurement of physical quantities, and geographic and celestial position were well-developed (for example, a “wall quadrant” constructed by Tycho Brahe [1546–1601], covering an entire wall in his observatory). Particularly important were the development of triangulation and other methods to determine mapping locations accurately.
  
  French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes and Pierre de Fermat developed analytic geometry and two-dimensional coordinate system which heavily influenced the practical methods of displaying and calculating values. Fermat and Blaise Pascal's work on statistics and probability theory laid the groundwork for what we now conceptualize as data. According to the Interaction Design Foundation, these developments allowed and helped William Playfair, who saw potential for graphical communication of quantitative data, to generate and develop graphical methods of statistics. 
   In the second half of the 20th century, Jacques Bertin used quantitative graphs to represent information "intuitively, clearly, accurately, and efficiently".
  John Tukey and Edward Tufte pushed the bounds of data visualization; Tukey with his new statis
caption: Planetary movements
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