Information visualization
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/WorldWideWebAroundGoogle.png/240px-WorldWideWebAroundGoogle.png)
Information visualization is the interdisciplinary study of "the visual representation of large-scale collections of non-numerical information, such as files and lines of code in software systems".[1]
Overview
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Internet_map_1024.jpg/240px-Internet_map_1024.jpg)
This field has emerged from research in human-computer interaction, computer science, graphics, visual design, psychology, and business methods. It is increasingly applied as a critical component in scientific research, digital libraries, data mining, financial data analysis, market studies, manufacturing production control, and drug discovery.[2]
Information visualization focused on the creation of approaches for conveying abstract information in intuitive ways. Visual representations and interaction techniques take advantage of the human eye’s broad bandwidth pathway into the mind to allow users to see, explore, and understand large amounts of information at once. [3]
History
Computer graphics has from its beginning been used to study scientific problems. However, in its early days the lack of graphics power often limited its usefulness. The recent emphasis on visualization started in 1987 with the special issue of Computer Graphics on Visualization in Scientific Computing.
Since then there have been several conferences and workshops, co-sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society and ACM SIGGRAPH, devoted to the general topics of Data visualisation, Information visualization and Scientific visualisation, and special areas in the field, for example volume visualization.
Specific methods and techniques
- Cladogram (phylogeny)
- Color alphabet
- Dendrogram (classification)
- Information visualization reference model
- Graph drawing
- Halo (visualization technique)
- Heatmap
- HyperbolicTree
- Multidimensional scaling
- Problem Solving Environment
- Treemapping
- Southbeach Notation
Applications
Information visualization is increasingly applied as a critical component in different directions:[4]
- scientific research,
- digital libraries,
- data mining,
- financial data analysis, market studies,
- manufacturing production control,
- and crime mapping.
See also:
- Command Post of the Future
- Informedia Digital Library
- Information graphics
- Starlight Information Visualization System
Experts
- Stuart K. Card
- Stuart K. Card is an American researcher. He is a Senior Research Fellow at Xerox PARC and one of the pioneers of applying human factors in human–computer interaction. The 1983 book The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction, which he co-wrote with Thomas P. Moran and Allen Newell, became a very influential book in the field, partly for introducing the Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection rules (GOMS) framework. His currently research is in the field of developing a supporting science of human–information interaction and visual-semantic prototypes to aid sensemaking.[5]
- George W. Furnas
- George Furnas is a professor and Associate Dean for Academic Strategy at the School of Information of the University of Michigan. Furnas has also worked with Bell Labs where he earned the moniker "Fisheye Furnas" while working with fisheye visualizations. He is a pioneer of Latent semantic analysis, Professor Furnas is also considered a pioneer in the concept of Mosaic of Responsive Adaptive Systems (MoRAS).
- James D. Hollan
- James D. Hollan directs the Distributed Cognition and Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at University of California, San Diego. His research explores the cognitive consequences of computationally-based media. The goal is to understand the cognitive and computational characteristics of dynamic interactive representations as the basis for effective system design. His current work focuses on cognitive ethnography, computer-mediated communication, distributed cognition, human-computer interaction, information visualization, multiscale software, and tools for analysis of video data.
- More related scientists
Organization
- Organizations
- International Symposium on Graph Drawing
- Panopticon Software
- University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab
- Vvi
See also
References
- ^ Michael Friendly (2008). "Milestones in the history of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visualization".
- ^ Benjamin B. Bederson and Ben Shneiderman (2003). The Craft of Information Visualization: Readings and Reflections, Morgan Kaufmann ISBN 1-55860-915-6.
- ^ James J. Thomas and Kristin A. Cook (Ed.) (2005). Illuminating the Path: The R&D Agenda for Visual Analytics. National Visualization and Analytics Center. p.30
- ^ Benjamin B. Bederson and Ben Shneiderman (2003). The Craft of Information Visualization: Readings and Reflections, Morgan Kaufmann ISBN 1-55860-915-6.
- ^ Stuart Card at PARC, 2004. Retrieved 1 July 2008.
Further reading
- Benjamin B. Bederson and Ben Shneiderman (2003). The Craft of Information Visualization: Readings and Reflections. Morgan Kaufmann.
- Stuart K. Card, Jock D.Mackinlay and Ben Shneiderman (1999). Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.
- Jeffrey Heer, Stuart K. Card, James Landay (2005). "Prefuse: a toolkit for interactive information visualization". In: ACM Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI 2005.
- Colin Ware (2000). Information Visualization: Perception for design. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann.
- Andreas Kerren, John T. Stasko, Jean-Daniel Fekete, and Chris North (2008). Information Visualization – Human-Centered Issues and Perspectives. Volume 4950 of LNCS State-of-the-Art Survey, Springer.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- American Society for Information Science and Technology Special Interest Group in Visualization Information and Sound.
- IEEE Visualization Conference for visualization advances in science and engineering for academia, government, and industry.
- InfoVis-Wiki.net - Wiki about Information Visualization
- Information Aesthetics: Data visualization & visual communication, a continuously updated collection of infoviz applications and software
- http://vam.anest.ufl.edu - A free transparent reality simulation of an anesthesia machine that uses information visualization, including sound and color
- Information Visualization at Curlie
- Information Visualisation Course Notes. Dr. Keith Andrews, IICM, Graz University of Technology.