Visual exploration and retrieval of XML document collections with the generic system X2

This article reports on the XML retrieval system X2 which has been developed at the University of Munich over the last five years. In a typical session with X2, the user first browses a structural summary of the XML database in order to select interesting elements and keywords occurring in documents. Using this intermediate result, queries combining structure and textual references are composed semiautomatically. After query evaluation, the full set of answers is presented in a visual and structured way. X2 largely exploits the structure found in documents, queries and answers to enable new interactive visualization and exploration techniques that support mixed IR and database-oriented querying, thus bridging the gap between these three views on the data to be retrieved. Another salient characteristic of X2 which distinguishes it from other visual query systems for XML is that it supports various degrees of detailedness in the presentation of answers, as well as techniques for dynamically reordering and grouping retrieved elements once the complete answer set has been computed

Telescope: An Object-Oriented Architecture for Visualization Systems

The construction of information visualization systems is a difficult task. The provision of an object-oriented software architecture for this kind of systems can help to reduce this difficulty. However, this approach is not currently used in most visualization systems. In this work, Telescope, an object-oriented architecture for visualization systems, is presented. Its main goal is to facilitate this construction, taking advantage of the benefits of the object-oriented paradigm (reusability, extensibility, and maintainability). The Telescope architecture is based on six main components, which are common to all information visualization systems: data representation, data abstraction, data objects- graphical objects mapping, presentation, interaction and visualization state. CityVis, a visualization system for city data, developed using Telescope architecture is described, showing the implementation of each Telescope component. Also, the implementation of several features in visualization systems, such as visualization techniques and management of abstraction levels and revealed information is described. Finally, current work and conclusions of the project are explained.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Guidelines for the presentation and visualisation of lifelog content

Lifelogs offer rich voluminous sources of personal and social data for which visualisation is ideally suited to providing access, overview, and navigation. We explore through examples of our visualisation work within the domain of lifelogging the major axes on which lifelogs operate, and therefore, on which their visualisations should be contingent. We also explore the concept of ‘events’ as a way to significantly reduce the complexity of the lifelog for presentation and make it more human-oriented. Finally we present some guidelines and goals which should be considered when designing presentation modes for lifelog conten

Reviews

Judith Jeffcoate, Multimedia in Practice ‐Technology and Applications, BCS Practitioner Series, Prentice‐Hall International, 1995. ISBN: 0–13–123324–6. £24.95