Patent ID: 8446412

Claim:
A data trends static visualization system, comprising: a computing device; a display device in communication with the computing device that displays: data containing data items having related data points that is plotted on a data trends static visualization diagram; nodes that represent data points of the data plotted on the data trends static visualization diagram; links that are used to connect related nodes of each of the data items; visualization components that statically vary visual properties of the nodes, the links, or both, to indicate changes over time of the data; an interaction component that highlights nodes and links of a selected data item and grays out nodes and links of remaining non-selected data items; a node size visualization component that first determines an ending node size of an ending node and then computes sizes of nodes earlier in time than the ending node, and then varies the sizes of the nodes earlier in time between a starting node having a smallest size and the ending node having a largest size, with each node gradually increasing in size from the starting node to the ending node to provide a static indicator of a direction over time of flow of a trend of the data items; and a node opacity visualization component that statically illustrates a direction over time of flow of a trend of a data item by varying opacity of the related nodes between a starting node and an ending node by going from nearly transparent and lacking most opacity at the starting node to approximately fully opaque at the ending node.