We present a new focus+context (fisheye) technique for visualizing and manipulating large hierarchies. Our technique assigns more display space to a portion of the hierarchy while still embedding it in the context of the entire hierarchy. The essence of this scheme is to lay out the hierarchy in a uniform way on a hyperbolic plane and map this plane onto a circular display region. This supports a smooth blending between focus and context, as well as continuous redirection of the focus. We have developed effective procedures for manipulating the focus using pointer clicks as well as interactive dragging, and for smoothly animating transitions across such manipulation. A laboratory experiment comparing the hyperbolic browser with a conventional hierarchy browser was conducted.

We present a new visualization, called the Table Lens, for visualizing and making sense of large tables. The visualization uses a focus context (fisheye) technique that works effectively on tabular information because it allows display of crucial label information and multiple distal focal areas. In addition, a graphical mapping scheme for depicting table contents has been developed for the most widespread kind of tables, the cases-by-variables table. The Table Lens fuses symbolic and graphical representations into a single coherent view that can be fluidly adjusted by the user. This fusion and interactivity enables an extremely rich and natural style of direct manipulation exploratory data analysis.

This article provides a taxonomy of distortion-oriented techniques which demonstrates clearly their underly- ng relationships. A unified theory is presented to reveal their roots and origins. Issues relating to the implementation and performance of these techniques are also discussed

DEC’s business and technology objectives require a strong research program. The Systems Research Center (SRC) and three other research laboratories are committed to filling that need. SRC began recruiting its first research scientists in l984—their charter, to advance the state of knowledge in all aspects of computer systems research. Our current work includes exploring high-performance personal computing, distributed computing, programming environments, system modelling techniques, specification technology, and tightly-coupled multiprocessors. Our approach to both hardware and software research is to create and use real systems so that we can investigate their properties fully. Complex systems cannot be evaluated solely in the abstract. Based on this belief, our strategy is to demonstrate the technical and practical feasibility of our ideas by building prototypes and using them as daily tools. The experience we gain is useful in the short term in enabling us to refine our designs, and invaluable in the long term in helping us to advance the state of knowledge about those systems. Most of the major advances

A fisheye camera lens is a very wide angle lens that magnifies nearby objects while shrinking distant objects. It is a valuable tool for seeing both "local detail" and "global context" simultaneously. This paper describes a system for viewing and browsing graphs using a software analog of a fisheye lens. We first show how to implement such a view using solely geometric transformations. We then describe a more general transformation that allows global information about the graph to affect the view. Our general transformation is a fundamental extension to previous research in fisheye views. Categories and Subject Descriptors: D.2.2 [Software Engineering]: Tools and Techniques--User Interfaces H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces--Interaction styles I.3.6 [Computer Graphics]: Methodology and Techniques--Interaction Techniques General Terms: Visualization Additional Key Words and Phrases: Fisheye Views, Graph Layout, Information Visualization, Interactive Gra...

LifeLines provide a general visualization environment for personal histories that can be applied to medical and court records, professional histories and other types of biographical data. A one screen overview shows multiple facets of the records. Aspects, for example medical conditions or legal cases, are displayed as individual time lines, while icons indicate discrete events, such as physician consultations or legal reviews. Line color and thickness illustrate relationships or significance, rescaling tools and filters allow users to focus on part of the information. LifeLines reduce the chances of missing information, facilitate spotting anomalies and trends, streamline access to details, while remaining tailorable and easily transferable between applications. The paper describes the use of LifeLines for youth records of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice and also for medical records. User's feedback was collected using a Visual Basic prototype for the youth record. Techniq...

Never before in history has data been generated at such high volumes as it is today. Exploring and analyzing the vast volumes of data is becoming increasingly difficult. Information visualization and visual data mining can help to deal with the flood of information. The advantage of visual data exploration is that the user is directly involved in the data mining process. There are a large number of information visualization techniques which have been developed over the last decade to support the exploration of large data sets. In this paper, we propose a classification of information visualization and visual data mining techniques which is based on the data type to be visualized, the visualization technique, and the interaction and distortion technique. We exemplify the classification using a few examples, most of them referring to techniques and systems presented in this special section.

user interface management system (UIMS). We describe Pad++, a zoomable graphical sketchpad that we are exploring as an alternative to traditional window and icon-based interfaces. We discuss the motivation for Pad++, describe the implementation, and present prototype applications. In addition, we introduce an informational physics strategy for interface design and briefly contrast it with current design strategies. We envision a rich world of dynamic persistent informational entities that operate according to multiple physics specifically designed to provide cognitively facile access and serve as the basis for design of new computationally-based work materials. 1 To appear in the Journal of Visual Languages and Computing.

This paper describes new interaction techniques for direct pen-based interaction on the Interactive Mural, a large (6’x3.5’) high resolution (64 dpi) display. They have been tested in a digital brainstorming tool that has been used by groups of professional product designers. Our “interactive wall ” metaphor for interaction has been guided by several goals: to support both free-hand sketching and high-resolution materials, such as images, 3D models and GUI application windows; to present a visual appearance that does not clutter the content with control devices; and to support fluid interaction, which minimizes the amount of attention demanded and interruption due to the mechanics of the interface. We have adapted and extended techniques that were developed for electronic whiteboards and generalized the use of the FlowMenu to execute a wide variety of actions in a single pen stroke. While this techniques were designed for a brainstorming tool, they are very general and can be used in a wide variety of application domains using interactive surfaces.

This paper describes an experiment comparing two methods for viewing hierarchically clustered networks. Traditional full-zoom techniques provide details of only the current level of the hierarchy. In contrast fisheye views, generated by the "variable zoom" algorithm described in this paper, provides information about higher levels as well. Subjects using both viewing methods were given problem solving tasks requiring them to navigate a network, in this case a simulated telephone system, and to reroute links in it. Results suggest that the greater context provided by fisheye views significantly improved a user's performance of the tasks. They were quicker to complete their task, and they made fewer unnecessary navigational steps through the hierarchy. This validation of fisheye views is important for designers of interfaces to complicated monitoring systems, such as control rooms for supervisory control and data acquisition systems, where efficient human performance is often critical. However, control room operators remained concerned about the size and visibility tradeoffs between the fine detail provided by full-zooms, and the global context supplied by fisheye views. Specific interface features are required to reconcile the differences.