A New Framework for Phylogenetic Tree Visualization

摘要

This paper focuses on tree structured data visualization. The impetus for the work will be in the domain of phylogenetic classification, which is used by the biologists to describe possible evolutionary relationships between species or individuals based on their DNA or protein sequences. It examines current tree visualization and comparison techniques and proposes a new framework that display fully resolved binary trees in a way that facilitates their visual comparison. A prototype interactive tool named VCPT (Visual Comparison of Phylogenetic trees) is developed to explore the proposed framework and issues in regard to visual comparison and manipulation of phylogenetic trees. Preliminary evaluation suggests that the proposed framework and the prototype application are helpful for the users to easily understand and interpret their tree structured data.