Information visualization - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Information visualization is the interdisciplinary study of "the visual

Visual system

The visual system is the part of the central nervous system which enables organisms to process visual detail, as well as enabling several non-image forming photoresponse functions. It interprets information from visible light to build a representation of the surrounding world...

representation

Representation (arts)

Representation is the use of signs that stand in for and take the place of something else. It is through representation that people organize the world and reality through the act of naming its elements...

of large-scale collections of non-numerical information, such as files and lines of code in software system

Software system

A software system is a system based on software forming part of a computer system . The term "software system" is often used as a synonym of computer program or software; is related to the application of systems theory approaches in software engineering context and are used to study large and...

s, library

Library

In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...

and bibliographic database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

s, networks of relations on the internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

, and so forth".

Overview

The field of information visualization has emerged "from research in human-computer interaction, computer science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

, graphics

Graphics

Graphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings,or...

, visual design, psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, and business methods. It is increasingly applied as a critical component in scientific research, digital libraries, data mining

Data mining

Data mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...

, financial data analysis, market studies, manufacturing production control, and drug discovery

Drug discovery

In the fields of medicine, biotechnology and pharmacology, drug discovery is the process by which drugs are discovered or designed.In the past most drugs have been discovered either by identifying the active ingredient from traditional remedies or by serendipitous discovery...

".

Information visualization presumes that "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. Information visualization focused on the creation of approaches for conveying abstract information in intuitive ways."

History

The modern study of visualization started with computer graphics

Computer graphics

Computer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and hardware....

, which "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

IEEE Computer Society

The IEEE Computer Society is a professional society of IEEE. Its purpose and scope is “to advance the theory, practice, and application of computer and information processing science and technology” and the “professional standing of its members.” The CS is the largest of 38 technical societies...

and ACM SIGGRAPH

ACM SIGGRAPH

ACM SIGGRAPH is the New York–based Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. It was founded in 1969 by Andy van Dam ....

". They have been devoted to the general topics of data visualisation, information visualization and scientific visualisation, and more specific areas such as volume visualization.

Specific methods and techniques

Cladogram
Cladistics
Cladistics is a method of classifying species of organisms into groups called clades, which consist of an ancestor organism and all its descendants . For example, birds, dinosaurs, crocodiles, and all descendants of their most recent common ancestor form a clade...

(phylogeny)
Dendrogram
Dendrogram
A dendrogram is a tree diagram frequently used to illustrate the arrangement of the clusters produced by hierarchical clustering...

(classification)
Information visualization reference model
Information visualization reference model
The Information visualization reference model is a reference model for information visualization, developed by Ed Chi in 1999., under the name of the data state model...
Graph drawing
Graph drawing
Graph drawing is an area of mathematics and computer science combining methods from geometric graph theory and information visualization to derive two-dimensional depictions of graphs arising from applications such as social network analysis, cartography, and bioinformatics...
Heatmap
HyperbolicTree
HyperbolicTree
In Web development jargon and information visualization, a hyperbolic tree defines a graph drawing method inspired by hyperbolic geometry....
Multidimensional scaling
Multidimensional scaling
Multidimensional scaling is a set of related statistical techniques often used in information visualization for exploring similarities or dissimilarities in data. MDS is a special case of ordination. An MDS algorithm starts with a matrix of item–item similarities, then assigns a location to each...
Problem Solving Environment
Problem Solving Environment
A Problem Solving Environment is a specialized computer software for solving one class of problems, combining automated problem-solving methods with human-oriented tools for guiding the problem resolution....
Treemapping
Treemapping
In information visualization and computing, treemapping is a method for displaying hierarchical data by using nested rectangles.- Main idea :...
Southbeach Notation

Applications

Information visualization insights are being applied in areas such as:

scientific research,
digital libraries,
data mining
Data mining
Data mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...

,
financial data analysis, market studies,
manufacturing production control,
and crime mapping
Crime mapping
Crime mapping is used by analysts in law enforcement agencies to map, visualize, and analyze crime incident patterns. It is a key component of crime analysis and the CompStat policing strategy...

.

And also:

Command Post of the Future
Command Post of the Future
The United States Army's Command Post of the Future is a C2 software system that allows commanders to maintain topsight over the battlefield; collaborate with superiors, peers and subordinates over live data; and communicate their intent....
Informedia Digital Library
Informedia Digital Library
The Informedia Digital Library is an ongoing research program at Carnegie Mellon University to build search engines and information visualization technology for many types of media...
Information graphics
Information graphics
Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics present complex information quickly and clearly, such as in signs, maps, journalism, technical writing, and education...
Starlight Information Visualization System
Starlight Information Visualization System
Starlight is a software product originally developed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and now by Future Point Systems. It is an advanced visual analysis environment...

Experts

Stuart K. Card

Stuart K. Card is an American researcher. He is a Senior Research Fellow at Xerox PARC

Xerox PARC

PARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and co-development company in Palo Alto, California, with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology and hardware systems....

and one of the pioneers of applying human factors

Human factors

Human factors science or human factors technologies is a multidisciplinary field incorporating contributions from psychology, engineering, industrial design, statistics, operations research and anthropometry...

in human–computer interaction. The 1983 book The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction, which he co-wrote with Thomas P. Moran

Thomas P. Moran

Thomas P. Moran is a Distinguished Engineer at the IBM Almaden Research Center near San Jose, California. He has been active in the field of human computer interaction for a long time. In 1983 the book he wrote along with Stuart Card and Allen Newell The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction...

and Allen Newell

Allen Newell

Allen Newell was a researcher in computer science and cognitive psychology at the RAND corporation and at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, Tepper School of Business, and Department of Psychology...

, became a very influential book in the field, partly for introducing the Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection rules (GOMS

GOMS

GOMS is a kind of specialized human information processor model for human computer interaction observation. Developed in 1983 by Stuart Card, Thomas P. Moran and Allen Newell, it was explained in their book The Psychology of Human Computer Interaction...

) framework. His currently research is in the field of developing a supporting science of human–information interaction and visual-semantic prototypes to aid sensemaking.

George W. Furnas

George Furnas

Prof. George W. Furnas is a professor and Associate Dean for Academic Strategy at the School of Information of the University of Michigan. Prior to his position at the University of Michigan, Furnas worked at Bell Labs for 15 years where he was a distinguished member of technical staff, and then...

is a professor and Associate Dean for Academic Strategy at the School of Information

University of Michigan School of Information

The School of Information or iSchool at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor is a graduate school offering both a Master of Science in Information and a Doctor of Information ....

of the University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

. Furnas has also worked with Bell Labs

Bell Labs

Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...

where he earned the moniker "Fisheye Furnas" while working with fisheye visualizations. He is a pioneer of Latent semantic analysis

Latent semantic analysis

Latent semantic analysis is a technique in natural language processing, in particular in vectorial semantics, of analyzing relationships between a set of documents and the terms they contain by producing a set of concepts related to the documents and terms. LSA assumes that words that are close...

, Professor Furnas is also considered a pioneer in the concept of Mosaic of Responsive Adaptive Systems (MoRAS).

James D. Hollan

James D. Hollan is Professor of Cognitive Science and Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, San Diego. In collaboration with Professor Edwin Hutchins, he directs the Distributed Cognition and Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at UCSD.His research explores the...

directs the Distributed Cognition and Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at University of California, San Diego

University of California, San Diego

The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...

. 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

Distributed cognition

Distributed cognition is a psychological theory developed in the mid 1980s by Edwin Hutchins. Using insights from sociology, cognitive science, and the psychology of Vygotsky it emphasizes the social aspects of cognition. It is a framework that involves the coordination between individuals,...

, human-computer interaction, information visualization, multiscale software, and tools for analysis of video data.

Martin Wattenberg

Martin M. Wattenberg

Martin M. Wattenberg is an American scientist and artist known for his work with data visualization. Along with Fernanda Viégas, he worked at the Cambridge location of IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center as part of the Visual Communication Lab, and created Many Eyes...

is known for pioneering work in artistic and social data visualization. With Fernanda Viegas

Fernanda Viégas

Fernanda Bertini Viégas is a Brazilian scientist and designer whose work focuses on the social, collaborative, and artistic aspects of information visualization. Viégas received a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Lab in 2005. The same year she began work at the Cambridge location...

he leads Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

's data visualization research group; he and Viegas

Fernanda Viégas

created the field of Social data analysis

Social Data Analysis

Social data analysis is a style of analysis in which people work in a social, collaborative context to make sense of data. The term was introduced by Martin Wattenberg in 2005...

and were the creators of "Many Eyes," the first cloud-based visualization service, and History Flow, a tool for visualizing Wikipedia edits. His artwork has been shown at museums worldwide, and helped establish visualization as an artistic practice.

More related scientists

George G. Robertson
George G. Robertson
George G. Robertson is an American information visualization expert and Senior Researcher, Visualization and Interaction Research Group, Microsoft Research. With Stuart K. Card, Jock D...
Pierre Rosenstiehl
Pierre Rosenstiehl
Pierre Rosenstiehl is a French mathematician at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales . He is particularly active in graph theory and recognized for his work on planar graphs and graph drawing...
Ben Shneiderman
Ben Shneiderman
Ben Shneiderman is an American computer scientist, and professor for Computer Science at the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland, College Park...
John Stasko
John Stasko
John Thomas Stasko III is a Professor in and the Associate Chair of the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at the Georgia Tech, where he joined the faculty in 1989. He also is one of the founding members of the Graphics, Visualization, and Usability Center there...

Organization

Organizations

International Symposium on Graph Drawing
International Symposium on Graph Drawing
The International Symposium on Graph Drawing is an annual academic conference in which researchers present peer reviewed papers on graph drawing, information visualization of network information, geometric graph theory, and related topics.-Significance:...
Panopticon Software
Panopticon Software
Panopticon Software is a multi-national Data Visualization software company specializing in monitoring and analysis of real-time data. The firm is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, with additional offices in New York City, London, Boston and partner agreements for other markets around the world...
University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab
University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab
The Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland, College Parkdesigns, implements, and evaluates new interface technologies that are universally usable, useful, efficient and appealing to a broad cross-section of people. To this end, the HCIL develops advanced user interfaces and...
Vvi
Vvi
For the airport, goto Viru Viru International AirportVVI is a company started in 1991 by Ed VanVliet, with the view of making computer software specialized to visualization for many technical-oriented industries, including medical device and financial service companies.-Overview:VVI is listed as a...
Macrofocus
Macrofocus
Macrofocus is a Swiss software company focusing on data visualization. Macrofocus' products can be used to graphically explore large and complex datasets, with Macrofocus InfoScope being a general-purpose tool. Macrofocus SurveyVisualizer specializes on survey datasets and Macrofocus TreeMap...
Mapjects Software

External links

InfoVis:Wiki, a community that collects infoviz techniques, publications and events in wiki format.
Visual Complexity, unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks

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