We propose a navigation technique for browsing large documents that integrates rate-based scrolling with automatic zooming. The view automatically zooms out when the user scrolls rapidly so that the perceptual scrolling speed in screen space remains constant. As a result, the user can efficiently and smoothly navigate through a large document without becoming disoriented by extremely fast visual flow. By incorporating semantic zooming techniques the user can smoothly access a global overview of the document during rate-based scrolling. We implemented several prototype systems, including a web browser, map viewer, image browser, and dictionary viewer. An informal usability study suggests that for a document browsing task, most subjects prefer automatic zooming and the technique exhibits approximately equal performance time to scroll bars , suggesting that automatic zooming is a helpful alternative totraditional scrolling when the zoomed out view provides appropriate visual cues. KE...

In current systems for browsing image collections, users are presented with sets of thumbnail images arranged in some default order on the screen. We are investigating whether it benefits users to have sets of thumbnails arranged according to their mutual similarity, so images that are alike are placed together. There are, of course, many possible definitions of "similarity": so far we have explored measurements based on low-level visual features, and on the textual captions assigned to the images. Here we describe two experiments, both involving designers as the participants, examining whether similarity-based arrangements of the candidate images are helpful for a picture selection task. Firstly, the two types of similarity-based arrangement were informally compared. Then, an arrangement based on visual similarity was more formally compared with a control of a random arrangement. We believe this work should be of interest to anyone designing a system that involves presenting sets of images to users. Keywords Image retrieval, information visualisation, evaluation.

The literature on information visualization establishes the usability of interfaces with an overview of the information space, but for zoomable user interfaces, results are mixed. We compare zoomable user interfaces with and without an overview to understand the navigation patterns and usability of these interfaces. Thirty-two subjects solved navigation and browsing tasks on two maps. We found no difference between interfaces in subjects ’ ability to solve tasks correctly. Eighty percent of the subjects preferred the interface with an overview, stating that it supported navigation and helped keep track of their position on the map. However, subjects were faster with the interface without an overview when using one of the two maps. We conjecture that this difference was due to the organization of that map in multiple levels, which rendered the overview unnecessary by providing richer navigation cues through semantic zooming. The combination of that map and the interface without an overview also improved subjects ’ recall of objects on the map. Subjects who switched between the overview and the detail windows used more time, suggesting that integration of overview and detail windows adds complexity and requires additional mental and motor effort.

This paper presents Photo Table Of Contents (PhotoTOC), a system that helps users find digital photographs in their own collection of photographs. PhotoTOC is a browsing user interface that uses an overview+detail design. The detail view is a temporally ordered list of all of the user's photographs. The overview of the user's collection is automatically generated by an image clustering algorithm, which clusters on the creation time and the color of the photographs. PhotoTOC was tested on users' own photographs against three other browsers. Searching for images with PhotoTOC was subjectively rated easier than all of the other browsers. This result shows that automatic organization of personal photographs facilitates efficient and satisfying search.

In the absence of manual organization of large digital photo collections, the photos ’ visual content and creation dates can help support time-based visual search tasks. Current zoomable photo browsers are designed to support visual searches by maximizing screenspace usage. However, their space-filling layouts fail to convey temporal order effectively. We propose a novel layout called time quilt that trades off screenspace usage for better presentation of temporal order. In an experimental comparison of space-filling, linear timeline, and time quilt layouts, participants carried out the task of finding photos in their personal photo collections averaging 4,000 items. They performed 45 % faster on time quilt. Furthermore, while current zoomable photo browsers are designed for visual searches, this support does not scale to thousands of photos: individual thumbnails become less informative as they grow smaller. We found a subjective preference for the use of representative photos to provide an overview for visual searches in place of the diminishing thumbnails.

Advances in data storage and image acquisition technologies have enabled the creation of large image datasets. In this scenario, it is necessary to develop appropriate information systems to efficiently manage these collections. The commonest approaches use the so-called Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) systems. Basically, these systems try to retrieve images similar to a user-defined specification or pattern (e.g., shape sketch, image example). Their goal is to support image retrieval based on content properties (e.g., shape, color, texture), usually encoded into feature vectors. One of the main advantages of the CBIR approach is the possibility of an automatic retrieval process, instead of the traditional keyword-based approach, which usually requires very laborious and time-consuming previous annotation of database images. The CBIR technology has been used in several applications such as fingerprint identification, biodiversity information systems, digital libraries, crime prevention, medicine, historical research, among others. This paper aims to introduce the problems and challenges concerned with the creation of CBIR systems, to describe the existing solutions and applications, and to present the state of the art of the existing research in this area.

This paper describes two algorithms for laying out groups of objects in a 2D space-filling manner. Quantum Treemaps are a variation on existing treemap algorithms that are designed for laying out images or other objects of indivisible (quantum) size. They build on the Ordered Treemap algorithm, but guarantees that every generated rectangle will have a width and height that are an integral multiple of an input object size. Bubblemaps also fill space with groups of quantum-sized objects, but generate nonrectangular blobs, and utilize space more efficiently. Both algorithms have been applied to PhotoMesa, an application that supports browsing of large numbers of images. PhotoMesa uses a Zoomable User Interface with a simple interaction designed for novices and family use. Keywords Zoomable User Interfaces (ZUIs), Treemaps, Image Browsers, Animation, Graphics, Jazz.

Compared with stationary environments, mobile devices suffer from a number of limitations like small screen space, limited processing power and bandwidth. Thus, it is very difficult and expensive to browse large images by using current mobile hardware. In this publication a new image browsing technique especially designed for mobile devices with limited screen space is introduced, and a completely new concept to communicate important image properties based on a well-defined grid structure is proposed. As every browsing technique needs reasonable concepts for user interaction, this publication introduces intuitive ways for image exploration, which need only little action of the user during browsing and processing power to calculate an appropriate image representation. To decrease the need for expensive bandwidth in remote environments, it will also be shown how to combine this browsing technique with image compression and transmission. Thus, a whole system for image communication is presented. Due to its excellent compression performance and flexibility, the modern JPEG2000 image coding standard is adopted as a foundation of the proposed system regarding a compliant compression and efficient transmission of the image. Concrete performance measures show the applicability of the introduced system.

The literature on information visualizations establishes the usability of overview+detail interfaces, but for zoomable user interfaces, results are mixed. We compare overview+detail and zoomable user interfaces to understand the navigation patterns and usability of these interfaces. Thirty-two subjects solved navigation and browsing tasks on maps organized in one or multiple levels. We find no difference between interfaces in subjects ' ability to solve tasks correctly. Eighty percent of the subjects prefer the overview+detail interface, stating that it supports navigation and helps keep track of their position on the map. However, subjects are faster using the zoomable user interface, especially in combination with the multi-level map and when solving navigation tasks. The combination of the zoomable user interface and the multi-level map also improves subjects ' recall of objects on the map. Switching between overview and detail windows was correlated with higher task completion time, suggesting that integration of overview and detail windows require mental and motor effort. We found large individual differences in navigation patterns and usability, but subjects ' visualization ability influenced usability similarly between interfaces.

Large information or model structures often span many scale levels, and exhibit important features at each scale. Having a coherent and cross-scale understanding of such multiscale structures often requires users to interact with the structures at different scales. While multiple views allow users to see the structures from different locations and at different scales, establishing cross-scale connections between structures in divergent multiple views could be a challenge. This paper proposes a new interactive design, space-scale animation, to visualize the spatial and semantic relationship between structures in different views, and discusses the design and implementation of space-scale animation as a dynamic view transition traversing space and scale. This research not only extends interactive animation techniques by explicitly considering the scale factor, but also argues the necessity to integrate cross-scale semantic information into animation to improve the understanding of complex structures. find it difficult to tie these two structures together simply based on these two static views. Similarly, two views in Figure 2 show geographic information of two places, but they do not tell users how these two places may be related.