Understanding Visualization: A formal approach using category theory and semiotics

This article combines the vocabulary of semiotics and category theory to provide a formal analysis of visualization. It shows how familiar processes of visualization fit the semiotic frameworks of both Saussure and Peirce, and extends these structures using the tools of category theory to provide a general framework for understanding visualization in practice, including: relationships between systems, data collected from those systems, renderings of those data in the form of representations, the reading of those representations to create visualizations, and the use of those visualizations to create knowledge and understanding of the system under inspection. The resulting framework is validated by demonstrating how familiar information visualization concepts (such as literalness, sensitivity, redundancy, ambiguity, generalizability, and chart junk) arise naturally from it and can be defined formally and precisely. This article generalizes previous work on the formal characterization of visualization by, inter alia, Ziemkiewicz and Kosara and allows us to formally distinguish properties of the visualization process that previous work does not

Highlighting in information visualization: A survey

Highlighting was the basic viewing control mechanism in computer graphics and visualization to guide users' attention in reading diagrams, images, graphs and digital texts. As the rapid growth of theory and practice in information visualization, highlighting has extended its role that acts as not only a viewing control, but also an interaction control and a graphic recommendation mechanism in knowledge visualization and visual analytics. In this work, we attempt to give a formal summarization and classification of the existing highlighting methods and techniques that can be applied in Information Visualization, Visual Analytics and Knowledge Visualization. We propose a new three-layer model of highlighting. We discuss the responsibilities of each layer in the different stage of the visual information processing. © 2010 IEEE

The ICE-Map Visualization

In this paper, we describe in detail the Information Content Evaluation Map (ICE-Map Visualization, formerly referred to as IC Difference Analysis). The ICE-Map Visualization is a visual data mining approach for all kinds of concept hierarchies that uses statistics about the concept usage to help a user in the evaluation and maintenance of the hierarchy. It consists of a statistical framework that employs the the notion of information content from information theory, as well as a visualization of the hierarchy and the result of the statistical analysis by means of a treemap

INTELLECTUAL-GRAPHIC VISUALIZATION OF INFORMATION AS AN INTEGRATIVE TEACHING METHOD

The article presents the theoretical reasoning and the practical value of such an integrative teaching method as intellectual-graphic visualization, which corresponds to the modern method of informatization of the society. The method is based on Metadidactics Theory, Visualization and Infographics Theory, and uses the fundamental cartographic approach to modeling spatially distributed information. Essentially, it is the reasoning for the second language use, i.e. the language of graphication of information, in the learning process. 

An Information-theoretic Framework for Visualization

Abstract-In this paper, we examine whether or not information theory can be one of the theoretic frameworks for visualization. We formulate concepts and measurements for qualifying visual information. We illustrate these concepts with examples that manifest the intrinsic and implicit use of information theory in many existing visualization techniques. We outline the broad correlation between visualization and the major applications of information theory, while pointing out the difference in emphasis and some technical gaps. Our study provides compelling evidence that information theory can explain a significant number of phenomena or events in visualization, while no example has been found which is fundamentally in conflict with information theory. We also notice that the emphasis of some traditional applications of information theory, such as data compression or data communication, may not always suit visualization, as the former typically focuses on the efficient throughput of a communication channel, whilst the latter focuses on the effectiveness in aiding the perceptual and cognitive process for data understanding and knowledge discovery. These findings suggest that further theoretic developments are necessary for adopting and adapting information theory for visualization