Information visualization |
As a subject in computer science, information visualization is the use of interactive, sensory representations, typically visual, of abstract data to reinforce cognition.
Information visualization is a complex research area. It builds on theory in information design, computer graphics, human-computer interaction and cognitive science.
Practical application of information visualization in computer programs involves selecting, transforming and representing abstract data in a form that facilitates human interaction for exploration and understanding. Dynamic forms of visualisation such as educational animation have the potential to enhance understandings of systems that change over time.
Important aspects of information visualization are the interactivity and dynamics of the visual representation. Strong techniques enable the user to modify the visualization in real-time, thus affording unparalleled perception of patterns and structural relations in the abstract data in question.
Although much work in information visualization regards to visual forms, auditory and other sensory representations are also of concern.
=Academic Journal=
[http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ivs/ Information Visualization]
=Academic Conferences=
One of the top academic conferences for new research in information visualization is the annually held IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization (InfoVis).
[http://infovis.org/infovis2004/ InfoVis 2004]
[http://www.infovis.org/infovis/2005/ InfoVis 2005]
There is also the annually held International Conference on Information Visualization (IV).
[http://www.graphicslink.demon.co.uk/IV05/ IV 05]
=Related research areas=
knowledge visualization
data mining, also known as knowledge-discovery in databases (KDD)
scientific visualization
graph drawing
*Timescapes, also known as wisdom for artificial intelligence (AI) agents
=References=
Bederson, Benjamin B., Ben Shneiderman. The Craft of Information Visualization: Readings and Refelections, Morgan Kaufmann, 2003, ISBN 1558609156.
Card, Stuart K., Mackinlay, Jock D., Shneiderman, Ben. Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1999, ISBN 1-55860-533-9.
William S. Cleveland (1993). Visualizing Data.
William S. Cleveland (1994). The Elements of Graphing Data.
Spence, Robert. Information Visualization, ACM Press, 2001, ISBN 0-201-59626-1.
Edward R. Tufte (1992). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Edward R. Tufte (1990). Envisioning Information.
Edward R. Tufte (1997). Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative.
Colin Ware (2000). Information Visualization: Perception for design.
=External links=
http://vam.anest.ufl.edu - A free transparent reality simulation of an anesthesia machine that uses information visualization, including sound and color
http://dmoz.org/Reference/Knowledge_Management/Knowledge_Discovery/Information_Visualization/ - Open Directory, section on Information Visualization
http://www.opendx.org/ - Open Data Explorer visualization software
http://www.thinkmap.com/ - Commercial Toolkit for Information Visualization
http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html
http://www.visualthesaurus.com - Visual Thesaurus
http://prefuse.sourceforge.net - Java Toolkit for Interactive Information Visualization
http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/piccolo - Toolkit for Zoomable User Interfaces
http://www2.ilog.com/preview/Discovery - Interactive tool to browse through a large visualization design space.
http://starlight.pnl.gov/ - Starlight Info Vis System, R&D100 winner
http://in-spire.pnl.gov/ - IN-SPIRE™ Visual Document Analysis for Windows, R&D100 winner
[http://www.visualcomplexity.com VisualComplexity.com] - A visual exploration on mapping complex networks
*Finally, WikiPedia itself can be visualized by a technique, called [
http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/ history flow].
