IEEE VIS Publication Dataset

The paper investigates the visualization of distributed algorithms. We present a conceptual model and a system, VADE, that realizes this model. Since in asynchronous distributed systems there is no way of knowing (let alone, visualizing) the “real” execution, we show how to generate a visualization which is consistent with the execution of the distributed algorithm. We also present the design and implementation of our system. VADE is designed so that the algorithm runs on the server's machines while the visualization is executed on a Web page on the client's machine. Programmers can write animations quickly and easily with the assistance of VADE's libraries

The paper describes a visualization of a general hierarchical clustering algorithm that allows the user to manipulate the number of classes produced by the clustering method without requiring a radical re-drawing of the clustering tree. The visual method used, a space filling recursive division of a rectangular area, keeps the items under consideration at the same screen position, even while the number of classes is under interactive control. As well as presenting a compact representation of the clustering with different cluster numbers, this method is particularly useful in a linked views environment where additional information can be added to a display to encode other information, without this added level of detail being perturbed when changes are made to the number of clusters

Information visualization encounters a wide variety of different data domains. The visualization community has developed representation methods and interactive techniques. As a community, we have realized that the requirements in each domain are often dramatically different. In order to easily apply existing methods, researchers have developed a semiology of graphic representations. We have extended this research into a framework that includes operators and interactions in visualization systems, such as a visualization spreadsheet. We discuss properties of this framework and use it to characterize operations spanning a variety of different visualization techniques. The framework developed in the paper enables a new way of exploring and evaluating the design space of visualization operators, and helps end users in their analysis tasks

The purpose of the paper is to develop a visualization system of a document space, called BiblioMapper, for CISI collections, one of the bibliographic databases available on the Internet. The major function of BiblioMapper is to visualize the document space with a cluster-based visualization technique. The cluster-based visualization technique assembles a set of documents according to semantic similarities. One advantage of this technique is that users are able to focus on and assess each cluster and the documents which the cluster comprises according to their information needs

Protein fold recognition (threading) involves the prediction of a protein's three-dimensional shape based on its similarity to a protein whose structure is known. Fold predictions are low resolution; no effort is made to rotate the protein's component amino acid side chains into their correct spatial orientations. Rather, the goal is to recognize the protein family member that most closely resembles the target sequence of unknown structure and to create a sensible alignment of the target to the structure (i.e., a structure-sequence alignment). To complement this structure prediction method the authors have implemented a low resolution molecular graphics tool. Since amino acid side chain orientation is not relevant in fold recognition, amino acid residues are represented by abstract shapes or glyphs much like LegoTM blocks. They also borrow techniques from comparative streamline visualization to provide clean depictions of the entire protein structure model. By creating a low resolution representation of protein structure, they are able to approximately double the amount of information on the screen. This implementation also possesses the advantage of eliminating distracting and possibly misleading visual clutter resulting from the mapping of protein alignment information onto a high resolution display of a known structure.

One very effective method for managing large data sets is aggregation or binning. We consider two aggregation methods that are tightly coupled with interactive manipulation and the visual representation of the data. Through this integration we hope to provide effective support for the aggregation process, specifically by enabling: 1) automatic aggregation, 2) continuous change and control of the aggregation level, 3) spatially based aggregates, 4) context maintenance across different aggregate levels, and 5) feedback on the level of aggregation

Geographic visualization, sometimes called cartographic visualization, is a form of information visualization in which principles from cartography, geographic information systems (GIS), exploratory data analysis (EDA), and information visualization more generally are integrated in the development and assessment of visual methods that facilitate the exploration, analysis, synthesis, and presentation of georeferenced information. The authors report on development and use of one component of a prototype GVis environment designed to facilitate exploration, by domain experts, of time series multivariate georeferenced health statistics. Emphasis is on how manipulable dynamic GVis tools may facilitate visual thinking, pattern noticing, and hypothesis generation. The prototype facilitates the highlighting of data extremes, examination of change in geographic patterns over time, and exploration of similarity among georeferenced variables. A qualitative exploratory analysis of verbal protocols and transaction logs is used to characterize system use. Evidence produced through the characterization highlights differences among experts in data analysis strategies (particularly in relation to the use of attribute “focusing” combined with time series animation) and corresponding differences in success at noticing spatiotemporal patterns

We present IVORY a newly developed, platform-independent framework for physics based visualization. IVORY is especially designed for information visualization applications and multidimensional graph layout. It is fully implemented in Java 1.1 and its architecture features client server setup, which allows us to run the visualization even on thin clients. In addition, VRML 2.0 exports can be viewed by any VRML plugged-in WWW browser. Individual visual metaphors are invoked into IVORY via an advanced plug-in mechanism, where plug-ins can be implemented by any experienced user. The configuration of IVORY is accomplished using a script language, called IVML. Some interactive visualization examples, such as the integration of a haptic interface illustrate the performance and versatility of our system. Our current implementation supports NT 4.0

The author proposes a simple and powerful graphical interface tool called the LensBar for filtering and visualizing large lists of data. Browsing and querying are the most important tasks in retrieving information and LensBar integrates the two techniques into a simple scroll window with slider. While it looks familiar to users of conventional graphical interface tools, its filtering and zooming features offer sophisticated handling of large lists of textual data

To gain insight and understanding of complex information collections, users must be able to visualize and explore many facets of the information. The paper presents several novel visual methods from an information analyst's perspective. The authors present a sample scenario, using the various methods to gain a variety of insights from a large information collection. They conclude that no single paradigm or visual method is sufficient for many analytical tasks. Often a suite of integrated methods offers a better analytic environment in today's emerging culture of information overload and rapidly changing issues. They also conclude that the interactions among these visual paradigms are equally as important as, if not more important than, the paradigms themselves

We present a new visualization technique, called RDT (Reconfigurable Disc Tree) which can alleviate the disadvantages of cone trees significantly for large hierarchies while maintaining its context of using 3D depth. In RDT, each node is associated with a disc, around which its children are placed. Using discs instead of cones as the basic shape in RDT has several advantages: significant reduction of occluded region, sharp increase in number of displayed nodes, and easy projection onto plane without visual overlapping. We show that RDT can greatly enhance user perception by transforming its shapes dynamically in several ways: (1) disc tree which can significantly reduce the occluded region by the foreground objects; (2) compact disc tree which can increase the number of nodes displayed on the screen; and (3) plane disc tree which can be mapped onto the plane without visual overlapping. We describe an implementation of our visualization system called VISIT (Visual Information System for reconfigurable dIsc tree). It provides 2D and 3D layouts for RDT and various user interface features such as tree reconfiguration, tree transformation, tree shading, viewing transformation, animation, selection and browsing which can enhance the user perception and navigation capabilities. We also evaluate our system using the following three metrics: percentage of occlusion, density of displayed nodes on a screen, and number of identifiable nodes

The authors propose a methodology for automatically realizing communicative goals in graphics. It features a task model that mediates the communicative intent and the selection of graphical techniques. The methodology supports the following functions: isolating assertions presentable in graphics; mapping such assertions into tasks for the potential reader, and selecting graphical techniques that support those tasks. They illustrate the methodology by redesigning a textual argument into a multimedia one with the same rhetorical and content structures but employing graphics to achieve some of the intentions

The order and arrangement of dimensions (variates) is crucial for the effectiveness of a large number of visualization techniques such as parallel coordinates, scatterplots, recursive pattern, and many others. We describe a systematic approach to arrange the dimensions according to their similarity. The basic idea is to rearrange the data dimensions such that dimensions showing a similar behavior are positioned next to each other. For the similarity clustering of dimensions, we need to define similarity measures which determine the partial or global similarity of dimensions. We then consider the problem of finding an optimal one- or two-dimensional arrangement of the dimensions based on their similarity. Theoretical considerations show that both, the one- and the two-dimensional arrangement problem are surprisingly hard problems, i.e. they are NP complete. Our solution of the problem is therefore based on heuristic algorithms. An empirical evaluation using a number of different visualization techniques shows the high impact of our similarity clustering of dimensions on the visualization results

The paper describes a general formulation of the “detail-in-context” problem, which is a central issue of fundamental importance to a wide variety of nonlinear magnification systems. A number of tools are described for dealing with this problem effectively. These tools can be applied to any continuous nonlinear magnification system, and are not tied to specific implementation features of the system that produced the original transformation. Of particular interest is the development of “seamless multi level views”, which allow multiple global views of an information space (each having different information content) to be integrated into a single view without discontinuity

Information visualization focuses on the use of visual means for exploring non-visual information. While free-form text is a rich, common source of information, visualization of text is a challenging problem since text is inherently non-spatial. The paper explores the use of implicit surface models for visualizing text. The authors describe several techniques for text visualization that aid in understanding document content and document relationships. A simple method is defined for mapping document content to shape. By comparing the shapes of multiple documents, global content similarities and differences may be noted. In addition, they describe a visual clustering method in which documents are arranged in 3D based upon similarity scoring. Documents deemed closely related blend together as a single connected shape. Hence, a document corpus becomes a collection of shapes that reflect inter-document relationships. These techniques provide methods to visualize individual documents as well as corpus meta-data. They then combine the two techniques to produce transparent clusters enclosing individual document shapes. This provides a way to visualize both local and global contextual information. Finally, they elaborate on several potential applications of these methods

Algorithm animation systems and graphical debuggers perform the task of translating program state into visual representations. While algorithm animations typically rely on user augmented source code to produce visualizations, debuggers make use of symbolic information in the target program. As a result, visualizations produced by debuggers often lack important semantic content, making them inferior to algorithm animation systems. The paper presents a method to provide higher level, more informative visualizations in a debugger using a technique called traversal based visualization. The debugger traverses a data structure using a set of user supplied patterns to identify parts of the data structure to be drawn a similar way. A declarative language is used to specify the patterns and the actions to take when the patterns are encountered. Alternatively, the user can construct traversal specifications through a graphical user interface to the declarative language. Furthermore, the debugger supports modification of data. Changes made to the on-screen representation are reflected in the underlying data

Decision tables, like decision trees or neural nets, are classification models used for prediction. They are induced by machine learning algorithms. A decision table consists of a hierarchical table in which each entry in a higher level table gets broken down by the values of a pair of additional attributes to form another table. The structure is similar to dimensional stacking. A visualization method is presented that allows a model based on many attributes to be understood even by those unfamiliar with machine learning. Various forms of interaction are used to make this visualization more useful than other static designs

A number of usability studies report that many users of the WWW cannot find pages already visited, additionally many users cannot visualise where they are, or where they have been browsing. Currently, readily available WWW browsers provide history mechanisms that offer little or no support in the presentation and manipulation of visited sites. Manipulation and presentation of usage data, such as a browse history has been used in a number of cases to aid users in searching for previously attained data, and to teach or assist other users in their browse or searching techniques. The paper presents a virtual reality (VR) based application to be used alongside traditional Web browsers, which provides them with a flexibly tailorable real time visualisation of their history

The paper details the use of a Virtual Environment for Reconstructive Surgery (VERS) in the case of a 17 year-old boy with a severe facial defect, arising from the removal of a soft tissue tumor. Computed tomography (CT) scans were taken of the patient, the data were segmented, a mesh was generated, and this patient-specific mesh was used in a virtual environment by the surgeons for preoperative visualization of the defect, planning of the surgery, and production of a custom surgical template to aid in repairing the defect. The paper details the case of this patient, provides a background on the virtual environment technology used, discusses the difficulties encountered, and describes the lessons learned.

The paper discusses a concept for virtual reality tools for use in design reviews of mechanical products. In this discussion, the special requirements of a virtual environment are given consideration. The focus of this paper is on suggestions for the visualization and arrangement of a product, its structure, its components and their alternatives together in one environment. The realization of these concepts results in a 3D-interface that allows users, especially engineers, to evaluate different configurations of a product and gives them direct access to the product structure. By applying various visualization techniques, product components and their attributes, e.g., their price, can be brought together into one visualization. Thus, in contrast to state-of-the-art software, the product structure, three-dimensional, real-sized components, and attribute values can be combined together in 3D-visualizations. This research was done in cooperation with Christoph Brandt, member of the Heinz Nixdorf Institute's virtual reality group.