MIAOW: A 3D Image Browser Applying a Location- and Time-Based Hierarchical Data Visualization Technique

摘要

Browsing techniques for large image collections become increasingly important for locating and retrieving images. We had a questionnaire result saying that many photograph collectors think that time and location are useful information to organize, browse, and retrieve images. This paper proposes MIAOW (Memorized Image Album Organized by When/Where); a 3D image browser which represents hierarchically categorized photographs based on their shooting locations and times. MIAOW utilizes a 3D space with an orthogonal coordinate system to place a set of photographs; it assigns two axes to the shooting locations of the photographs, and the other axis to their shooting time. Supposing that all images have shooting locations (longitudes and latitudes) and times, MIAOW hierarchically categorizes the set of images in preprocessing step. MIAOW then places all clusters of the images onto the XY-plane of the 3D space as nested rectangular regions, while it attempts to avoid overlapping, minimize the occupied area, and reflect the locations. It also places the same set of clusters onto the XZ- and YZ-planes, avoids any overlaps, minimizes the occupied area, and reflects the time and result of the placement on XY-plane. MIAOW provides an orientation and zooming user interface, so that users can use to easily navigate between location and time spaces and zoom into interested clusters of photographs. This paper demonstrates our user experiments showing that the users required less time to search for specific photographs by using MIAOW rather than using an existing browser.