Patent ID: 7907139

Claim:
A method executed by a computer to form a pixel bar chart for display on a display monitor, comprising: obtaining a set of records, each record comprising a plurality of attributes; assigning a pixel to each of said records to provide record-assigned pixels, wherein every such record-assigned pixel in the chart is assigned to a different record; and constructing the pixel bar chart by: partitioning the record-assigned pixels into groups along a first axis of the pixel bar chart according to a first dividing attribute; partitioning the record-assigned pixels in the groups into sub-groups along a second axis of the pixel bar chart according to a second dividing attribute; after partitioning into the sub-groups, sorting, in each of the sub-groups, the record-assigned pixels according to a first ordering attribute along the first axis of the pixel bar chart, and according to a second ordering attribute along the second axis of the pixel bar chart, wherein each record-assigned pixel is adjacent at least one other record-assigned pixel.