Patent ID: 7196705

Claim:
Computer-readable medium encoded with stored rendering data for output as a perspective-corrected visualization of data clusters, comprising: a plurality of stored clusters to individually represent thematically related objects, each stored cluster visually defining a bounded area within a two-dimensional visualization with a center of mass located within the bounded area; a concept space to span the two-dimensional visualization, which outputs the stored clusters positioned with each center of mass at a distance and angle of rotation determined from an origin common to the concept space; and a perspective-corrected distance determined as a function of spacing between the centers of mass and the distances and angles of rotation for each pair of stored clusters, wherein the distance of at least one of the pair of stored clusters is conditionally replaced with the perspective-corrected distance; a stored quadratic equation to provide the function by which the perspective-corrected distance can be determined, wherein, for the at least one pair of clusters d i and d j , the perspective-corrected distance d i for the cluster i is calculated according to the quadratic equation comprising: d i = ( 2 · d j ⁢ cos ⁢ ⁢ θ ) ± ( 2 · d j ⁢ cos ⁢ ⁢ θ ) 2 - 4 · ( d j 2 - [ r i + r j ] 2 ) 2 where d j represents the distance for the cluster j, and r i and r j are radii for the clusters i and j, respectively; and the two-dimensional visualization is output on a display.