4 Visual Representations

摘要

Visualization can help in the process of extracting insight from data during decision-making. Its advantages are based on the ability to rapidly interpret large quantities of data. The challenge in this context consists in constructing visualization systems which enable the user to understand and perceive the data effectively by providing transparent interaction methods for effective communication between the user and the data. Ware [872] states a number of advantages of visualization, namely:1. The ability to comprehend huge amounts of data.2. The perception of properties that are otherwise not anticipated.3. The extraction of problems with data itself, i.e., detecting outliers or anomalies.4. The understanding of both large-scale as well as small-scale features of data.5. The creation of various hypotheses related to the data.Visual representations range from simple maps and schematic diagrams to computer generated 2D and 3D visualizations. They differ themselves from other kinds of representations, e.g., sentential representations, in the fact that they make use of visual variables to convey the information to the user. In contrast, sentential representations use the semantics of their constituent units, words, and letters, to achieve the same thing. Thus, the meaning of a word is dependent on its context and its letters but not on the spatial position of the word.