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Information visualization

Overview

Chaomei Chen

Published Online: Apr 29 2010

DOI: 10.1002/wics.89

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This overview introduces the key structure of the field of information visualization, a number of influential exemplars in the field, and challenging as well as promising directions of future developments. The focus is on explaining some of the most fundamental concepts, prominent approaches, and commonly held criteria. The overview also aims to point out theoretical and practical challenges that the community as a whole has been addressing. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Figure 1.

Losses suffered by the Grande Armée during the Russian Campaign.^c

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Figure 2.

John Snow's dot map of cholera deaths.^d

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Figure 3.

SmartMoney on April 3, 2009 (left) and April 16, 2009 (right). .

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Figure 4.

ManyEyes. .

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Figure 5.

Alice's adventures in Wonderland in TextArc. .

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Figure 6.

Knowledge domain landscapes.38

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Figure 7.

A clickstream map of scientific journals.39

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Figure 8.

A screenshot of GeoTime.

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Figure 9.

Bundled edges in graph visualization.58

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Figure 10.

Geometry‐based edge bundling.59

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Figure 11.

Layout with constraints.60

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Figure 12.

Logarithmic view centered at the Capitol in Washington.61 Points northwest of the capitol are mapped to a vertical line in the middle of the image. Points southeast are mapped to the very left and the very right.

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Figure 13.

A circular logarithmically transformed map of the universe.^f The circular structure in this visualization is a 2D projection of the Universe based on the right ascension and the distance between the Earth and an astronomical object, such as stars, galaxies, or quasars.

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Resources

FURTHER READING

Card S, Mackinlay J, Shneiderman B, eds. Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann; 1999.

Chen C. Information Visualization: Beyond the Horizon. 2nd ed. London: Springer; 2004.

Chen C. Mapping Scientific Frontiers: The Quest for Knowledge Visualization. London: Springer-Verlag; 2003.

Kraak MJ. Geovisualization illustrated. ISPRS J Photogramm Remote Sensing 2003, 57: 390–399.

MacEachren AM. How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design. New York: Guilford Press; 1995.

Spence B. Information Visualization. London: Addison-Wesley; 2001.

Thomas J, Cook K. Illuminating the Path, the Research and Development Agenda for Visual Analytics: IEEE CS Press; 2005.

Tufte ER. Visual Explanations. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press; 1997.

Tufte ER. Envisioning Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press; 1990.

Ware C. Visual Thinking for Design: Morgan Kaufmann; 2008.

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