GVU Technical Report Number:
GIT-GVU-97-24
Title:
The Information Mural: A Technique for Displaying and Navigating Large
Information Spaces
Authors:
Dean F. Jerding
John T. Stasko
Abstract:
Information visualizations must allow users to browse information
spaces and focus quickly on items of interest. Being able to see some
representation of the entire information space provides an initial
gestalt overview and gives context to support browsing and search
tasks. However, the limited number of pixels on the screen constrain
the information bandwidth and make it difficult to completely display
large information spaces. The Information Mural is a two-dimensional,
reduced representation of an entire information space that fits
entirely within a display window or screen. The mural creates a
miniature version of the information space using visual attributes
such as grayscale shading, intensity, color, and pixel size, along
with anti-aliased compression techniques. Information Murals can be
used as stand-alone visualizations or in global navigational views.
We have built several prototypes to demonstrate the use of Information
Murals in visualization applications; subject matter for these views
includes computer software, scientific data, text documents, and
geographic information.
Keywords:
Information visualization, software visualization, data visualization,
focus context, navigation, browsers
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