magic lenses for interactive database visualization ken fishkin softbook press, inc

Magic Lenses for Interactive Database Visualization

Ken Fishkin

SoftBook Press, Inc.

Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 2

Standard WIMP

all windows are opaque, self-contained exception: zoom lenses are nice


Magic Lenses

Magic Lenses are Windows which know about what’s below them, and/or what’s above them.

They can alter input, output, or both. They can be composed


Magic Lenses - click through

wouldn’t it be nice if I could “click through” a zoom lens?


Magic Lenses - composable

and even nicer if they could compose?


Magic Lenses - semantic

and even nicer if they could be non-graphical?


Magic Lenses - inter-app

And even nicer if semantics were F(other windows)?


To Recap

Magic Lenses are Windows which know about what’s below them, and/or what’s above them.

They can alter input, output, or both. They can be composed 3D possible


Overall flow

(many)


How do you implement it?

Purely graphical lenses “trap” calls to event manager (input), graphics

engine (output) Semantic lenses

shared data, and/or protocol for passing objects Speed a big issue

lots and lots of caching


What This Buys You

Multiple foci + context


“Reify” modes into objects


Composability gives you “spatial Unix pipes”. Let’s use it for data visualization...


Traditional Database Queries

Use a Special Language select title from movies where lead_actor=‘Connery, Sean’ and (year < 1960 or year > 1975)

Batch, non-visual


Visual Representation of Databases

Map each record to a point on the plane

Since 1854 (at least)


Dynamic Queries (example 1) One

selector per attribute


Dynamic Queries (example 2)

Selectors filter the display


Dynamic Queries (limitations)

designed for a small number of attributes only global filters can’t screen on an attribute more than once no disjunctions limited query set


Hybrid Techniques

language for ‘leaves’ of the query, visual interface for compound queries Still not all queries supported

ContentContent

DateDate

ContentContent

ContainsContains

is beforeis before

containscontains

Document ManagementDocument Management

05/01/9405/01/94

Visual Recall OSVisual Recall OS

AndAnd OrOr


Magic Lenses

Movable local filters, which transform the data underneath them in some way, be it visual (magnifying lens), semantic (misspelled words), or other


Merging Lenses into Queries

Put one attribute selector on a lens.


Free Wins(1) - local filters


#2 - repeated attributes


#3 - arbitrary number of attrs.

Just stack ‘em up.


Consistent UI


Query Power

2.5D order of windows implies a composition/evaluation order

Put an AND/OR toggle on the lens to indicate how it should compose: A AND B --> <A,AND> above <B> A OR B --> <A,OR> above <B>


And/or in action


Query Power(2)

NOT gets its own lens A AND NOT (B OR C)

<A,AND> <NOT> <B,OR> <C>


Grouping

Introduce compound (grouped) lenses Allows parenthesizing allows macros Conjunction + Negation + Grouping ==>

support for arbitrary Boolean queries


Extensions

No need to have just ‘AND’ and ‘OR’ - could have any/all of the 16 possible combinations.

Could just have a ‘NAND’ mode, but that would be non-intuitive. And/Or/Not are most common.


Fuzzy Selectors

Selectors need not be ‘pass/fail’.

FalseFalse

TrueTrue

FalseFalse

TrueTrue

00

11

00

11


Selectors over [0..1]


Numerical Operators


Fuzzy Composition

Selectors on [0..1] implies composition on [0..1]

Replace AND by MIN, OR by MAX, NOT by complement

Presently, have implemented arithmetic (“DIFF”), statistical (“SQRT”), and fuzzy (“VERY”)

Many others possible


Fuzzy example


Missing Data - display


Missing Data - example


Missing Data - composition

How do composition operators handle it? We treat it like IEEE NaN


Meta-Functions

Click ‘through’ the window to send a command to the data underneath.


Conclusion (1995)

by merging Dynamic Queries with Magic Lenses, we keep the interactive, visual nature of queries, but add more functionality.

Future work: a slicker UI, user studies.


Conclusion (2000)

If this is so great, why doesn’t everyone use it? Inter-app. Requires lots of “plumbing”, Xerox

licensing. OS X? Intra-app. Requires Xerox licensing. So far SGI

only one determined enough to do it.

magic lenses for interactive database visualization ken fishkin softbook press, inc

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