1. VisLink: Revealing Relationships
Amongst Visualizations
C H R I S TO P H E R C O L L I N S
&
S H E E L AG H C A R P E N DA L E
ccollins@cs.utoronto.ca, sheelagh@ucalgary.ca
IEEE Information Visualization 2007
5. Understanding Multiple Relations
What is the relationship…
across different views of the same data?
across different relations in the same dataset?
across multiple relations and datasets?
7. VisLink Overview
Any number of 2D
visualizations, each on its
own plane in 3D space
Adjacent planes connected
by bundled edges
Shortcuts and constrained
widgets aid usability
Enables powerful
inter-visualization queries
8. Formalizing Multiple Relations Visualizations
Dataset Relation Visualization
Conference Attendee Data Professor / Student Node-link social
network graph
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
9. Formalizing Multiple Relations Visualizations
Dataset Relation Visualization
DA
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
10. Formalizing Multiple Relations Visualizations
Dataset Relation Visualization
DA R A ( DA )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
11. Formalizing Multiple Relations Visualizations
Dataset Relation Visualization
DA R A ( DA ) Vis A RA ( DA )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
12. Formalizing Multiple Relations Visualizations
Relation
R A ( DA )
Dataset Visualization
DA Vis A RA ( DA )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
13. Formalizing Multiple Relations Visualizations
Relation
R A ( DA )
Dataset Visualization
Relation
DA RB ( DA ) Vis A RA ( DA )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
14. Formalizing Multiple Relations Visualizations
Visualization
Relation Vis A RA ( DA )
R A ( DA )
Visualization
Dataset
Vis B RA ( DA )
Relation
DA RB ( DA )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
15. Formalizing Multiple Relations Visualizations
Visualization
Relation Vis A RA ( DA )
R A ( DA )
Visualization
Dataset
Vis B RA ( DA )
Relation
DA RB ( DA )
Visualization
VisC RB ( DA )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
17. Individual Visualizations
Any datasets, relations, and visualizations
Manually compare
e.g. different charts in Excel
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
18. Coordinated Views
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
19. Coordinated Views
Vis A RA ( DA )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
20. Coordinated Views
Vis A RA ( DA ) Vis A RB ( DA )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
21. Coordinated Views
Vis A RA ( DA ) Vis A RB ( DA )
Any datasets, relations, and visualizations
Interactive highlighting
e.g., Snap-Together Visualization (North & Shneiderman, 2000)
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
22. Compound Graphs
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
23. Compound Graphs
Vis A RA ( DA )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
24. Compound Graphs
Vis A RA ( DA ) RB ( DA )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
25. Compound Graphs
Vis A RA , RB ( DA )
Secondary relation has no spatial rights
e.g., Overlays on Treemaps (Fekete et al., 2003), ArcTrees
Use of the powerful spatial dimension
(Neumann et al., 2005), Hierarchical Edge Bundles (Holten, 2006)
to encode data relationships.
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
26. Semantic Substrates
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
32. Semantic Substrates
Vis A RA ( DA1 ) Vis A RA ( DA2 )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
33. Semantic Substrates
Vis A RA ( DA1 ) Vis A RA ( DA2 )
Vis A RA ( DA )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
34. Semantic Substrates
Single visualization, single relation
Semantically meaningful data subsets
Spatial rights for all relations
(Shneiderman and Aris, 2006)
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
36. VisLink
Vis A RA ( DA )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
37. VisLink
Vis A RA ( DA ) Vis B RB ( DA )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
38. VisLink
Vis A RA ( DA ) Vis B RB ( DA )
Vis B RA ( DB )
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
39. VisLink
Vis A RA ( DA ) Vis B RB ( DA )
Vis A B T ( RA ( DA ), RB ( DA ))
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
40. VisLink
Vis A B T ( RA ( DA ), RB ( DA ))
Visualize second order relations between visualizations
Across any datasets, relations, visualizations for which a
relation can be defined
All component visualizations retain spatial rights
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
41. VisLink & Semantic Substrates
Vis A RA ( DA1 ) Vis A RA ( DA2 ) Vis A RA ( DA ) Vis B RB ( DA )
Vis A RA ( DA ) Vis A B T ( RA ( DA ), RB ( DA ))
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
42. VisLink & Semantic Substrates
Vis A RA ( DA1 ) Vis A RA ( DA2 ) Vis A RA ( DA ) Vis B RB ( DA )
Vis A RA ( DA ) Vis A B T ( RA ( DA ), RB ( DA ))
Single visualization technique
Semantic subsets of data provide added meaning
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
43. VisLink & Semantic Substrates
Vis A RA ( DA1 ) Vis A RA ( DA2 ) Vis A RA ( DA ) Vis B RB ( DA )
Vis A RA ( DA ) Vis A B T ( RA ( DA ), RB ( DA ))
Any number of different relations and visualizations
Second order relations revealed in inter-plane edges
Formalism for Multiple Relationship Visualization Comparison
46. VisLink Case Study: Lexical Data
WordNet IS-A hierarchy (RA)
? Similarity clustering (RB) using
using radial tree (VisA) force-directed layout (VisB)
VisLink Visualization
54. Spreading Activation
Nodes have a level of activation, indicated by
transparency of orange node background
Full activation through:
Selecting a node on a plane
Node matches search query
Activation propagates through interplane edges,
reflecting between planes with exponential drop-off
Enables inter-visualization queries
Edge transparency relative to source node activation
Spreading Activation
55. Inter-Plane Query Example
2: synonym sets
1: alphabetic clusters
No synonym information No alphabetic organization
Q: Synonyms in the alphabetic view?
Spreading Activation
56. Inter-Plane Query Example
1. Select a word on plane 1
2. Edges propagate to synonym sets on plane 2
3. Reflected edges propagate back, revealing
synonyms in alphabetic clusters
1: similarity clusters 2: synonym sets
Spreading Activation
57. Inter-Plane Query Example
1. Select a word on plane 1
2. Edges propagate to synonym sets on plane 2
3. Reflected edges propagate back, revealing
synonyms in alphabetic clusters
1: similarity clusters 2: synonym sets
Spreading Activation
58. Inter-Plane Query Example
1. Select a word on plane 1
2. Edges propagate to synonym sets on plane 2
3. Reflected edges propagate back, revealing
synonyms in alphabetic clusters
1: similarity clusters 2: synonym sets
Spreading Activation
59. Inter-Plane Query Example
1. Select a word on plane 1
2. Edges propagate to synonym sets on plane 2
3. Reflected edges propagate back, revealing
synonyms in alphabetic clusters
1: similarity clusters 2: synonym sets
Spreading Activation
63. Implementation
Prefuse visualization toolkit (Heer et al., 2005)
Existing visualizations can be incorporated without changes
Interplane edges defined by (plane, node) index pairs
Java OpenGL
Case Study
64. Perceptual Considerations
Not all layouts equal
Colour interactions with edges and visualizations
3D perspective bias
Conclusion
65. Future Work
Application to additional analytic scenarios
Investigation of 3D edge bundling, edge lenses
Animation of spreading activation
Evaluation against existing multiple view techniques
Rich query language to filter visualization planes
Conclusion
66. Summary
Formalism to describe multi-relation visualizations
New way to reveal relationships amongst visualizations
Reuse of the powerful spatial visual dimension
Full 2D interactivity for constituent visualizations
Techniques to simplify 3D navigation
Visualization bridging through inter-representational
queries and spreading activation
Conclusion
67. VisLink: Revealing Relationships
Amongst Visualizations
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Gerald Penn, Petra Isenberg, Mark Hancock,
Tobias Isenberg, Uta Hinrichs, and Matthew Tobiasz,
and helpful reviewers for their advice.
Christopher Collins (ccollins@cs.utoronto.ca) & Sheelagh Carpendale (sheelagh@ucalgary.ca)