Information visualization

Information visualization and data visualization is an area of ​​research that deals with the computer-assisted methods for the graphical representation of large amounts of data that are not directly related to physical states or processes. The pictorial representation methods are intended to help evaluate these data and to extract from them new insights.

Information is commonly conceptually distinguished from knowledge. So also from the information visualization itself distinguished the knowledge visualization (english knowledge visualization ) as a process of knowledge transfer ( knowledge transfer ), which uses graphical means of any kind, not even computer- bound. The basis for the visualization of knowledge, the learning psychological benefits of visual communication form.

Workspace

The information visualization is a relatively newly set up interdisciplinary field that uses, among other methods and knowledge of computer science, statistics, data mining, and cognitive science. The objective is here also to improve the human-computer interaction.

Task of information visualization is basically the expressive and thereby effective representation of the data samples and the information contained therein. Expressive means that all data and only the data included in the visualization. Effectiveness means that the observer of a visualization can quickly gain an overview of the information contained in the data is. It is perception effects, such as optical illusions, to take into account.

A distinction is generally whether visualizations for presenting information used or whether it is an exploration visualization on the record.

Since 2002, a yearbook entitled Information Visualization appears. There are regular two events: the InfoVis and Visualization.

Examples

Citespace analysis

In his article, Searching for intellectual turning points Chaomei Chen presents a method for the analysis of Zitationsräumen dar. On his website is a tool for analyzing the Web of Science available. It can not only bibliographic data but also the citations of authors are tracked by other authors. The investigation of Kozitation is a long-known information technology method. A new feature of the application of Chen Progressive Pathfinder Network Scaling the problem Cocitation. This analysis works with Pathfinder Associative Networks. The algorithm originates from the psychologist Roger W. Schvaneveldt and belongs to the field of artificial intelligence research.

The tool is very flexible and provides the ability to perform other analyzes such as authors or publication related cluster analysis.

Visualization of semantic networks

For the ontology editor Protégé -2000, there are several visualization plug-ins that allow representation of ontologies and semantic networks in graph format with variable layout.