UNIT-3

Unit-3:
Visualization Techniques: Spatial Data: One-Dimensional Data - Two-Dimensional Data –
Three-Dimensional Data - Dynamic Data - Combining Techniques.
Geospatial Data: Visualizing Spatial Data- Visualization of Point Data -Visualization of Line
Data-Visualization of Area Data - Other Issues in Geospatial Data Visualization
Multivariate Data: Point-Based Techniques - Line- Based Techniques -Region-Based
Techniques-Combinations of Techniques – Trees Displaying Hierarchical Structures –
Graphics and Networks-Displaying Arbitrary Graphs/Networks.
References:
1.Matthew Ward, Georges Grinstein and Daniel Keim, : Interactive Data Visualization Foundations,
Techniques, Applications “,2010

3.1 Visualization Techniques for spatial data:

Spatial data visualization, which corresponds to the field of scientific
visualization, assumes that the data has an implicit or explicit spatial or
spatio temporal attribute.
This constraint facilitates both the creation and interpretation of the
visualization, as there is an intuitive, and often straightforward, mapping of the
data attributes to graphical attributes of the entities conveying the information
in the visualization.
As our visual perception system is constantly receiving and interpreting
imagery of the physical phenomena surrounding us, it is quite natural to
process the same form of imagery on a computer screen.
In creating a visualization of spatial data, we must decide what spatial
attributes of the data will map to the spatial attributes (locations) on the
screen.
This can involve many forms of transformation, including scaling, rotation,
translation, shearing, and projection.
Once the spatial attributes are accommodated, other attributes and values
associated with the data must then be mapped to other components of the
visualization, whether it is an attribute such as color or texture or the size or
shape of a graphical entity.
One-Dimensional Data:
One-dimensional spatial data is often the result of accumulating samples or
readings of some phenomenon while moving along a path in space. For
example, a drill-hole sample will contain mineral content and ore grade
information based on the distance from the top of the drill-hole. This sort of
sampling is often referred to as a probe when exploring structures of higher
dimensions.
Given a one-dimensional sequence of univariate data (only one value per data
item), we can map the spatial data to one of the screen dimensions and the
data value itself to either the other screen dimension (to form a line graph, see
Figure ) or to the color of a mark or region along the spatial axis (to form a
color bar). The data needs to be scaled to fit within the range of the display
attribute (either number of pixels or number of colors). Parts of the display
space or color range might be reserved for other aspects of the visualization,
such as the axes, labels, and key, so the most general structure for an
algorithm to generate such a visualization will use parameters for the bounds
of both the data and display spaces.

Fig : A line graph of a 1D sequence of data values

Assume that (datamin, datamax) are computed as the minimum and maximum
values for the data, and datacount indicates the number of data points to be
displayed (this could be all of the data, or just a selected subset). Also assume
the section of the display that will hold the visualization is defined by the
rectangle (xmin, ymin, xmax, ymax). To generate a line graph from an array
called “data,” we could use the following code (assuming the drawing
command draw-Line exists).
Draw-Line-Graph(data, dataCount, xMin, xMax, yMin, yMax)

1 dataMin ← computeMin(data, dataCount)

2 dataMax ← computeMax(data, dataCount)

3 xFrom ← xMin

4 yFrom ← worldToScreenY(data[0], dataMin, dataMax, yMin,

5 yMax)

6 for i ← 1 to dataCount

7 do xTo ← worldToScreenX(i, dataCount, xMin, xMax)

8 yTo ← worldToScreenY(data[i], dataMin, dataMax,

9 yMin, yMax)

10 drawLine(xF rom, yFrom, xTo, yTo)

11 xFrom ← xTo

12 yFrom ← yTo

worldToScreenX(index, dataCount, xMin, xMax)

return (xMin + index ∗ (xMax − xMin)/dataCount)

worldToScreenY(value, dataMin, dataMax, yMin, yMax)

return (yMin + (value − dataMin) ∗ (yMax − yMin)/(dataMax − dataMin))

Note that each transformation is a combination of offsets and scaling that we

use to convert values in one coordinate system into another. This operation is
used heavily in computer graphics, and we will use variants on it numerous
times in this book. It is derived based on the observation that a point within a
given range can be transformed to a point within a different range by
computing the relative position of the point within the range, e.g., what
percentage of the distance from one end of the range to the other is the
selected point. Mathematically, this is given as
(Ai − Amin)/(Amax − Amin)=(Bi − Bmin)/(Bmax − Bmin)

where Ai is a location in the range [Amin → Amax] and Bi is the corresponding

location in the range [Bmin → Bmax].

Two-Dimensional Data:
Data with two spatial dimensions get visualized predominantly by mapping
the spatial attributes of the data to the spatial attributes of the screen. The
result can be one of the following visualizations:
1. An image results if a single data value at each location is mapped to
color and all intermediate pixels are colored via interpolation .
2. A rubber sheet results if the data, whether regularly or irregularly
spaced, is mapped to the height of a point in three dimensions, with the
points triangulated so that a surface can be formed.
3. A cityscape is formed by drawing three-dimensional objects (generally
boxes) at locations on a plane, where the data can control the attributes
of the graphical objects (i.e., height and color).
4. A scatterplot results if, at each location on the plot, the data value(s)
control the color, shape, or size of a marker. Note that unlike for images,
no interpolation is performed.
5. A map results if the data contains linear and area features, as well as
point objects. A linear feature, such as a road or stream, is represented
as a sequence of connected coordinates, which are plotted as a series of
line segments. Area features, such as a lake or political boundary, are
generally represented as a closed contour, a set of coordinates where
the first and last points are the same.
6. A contour or isovalue map conveys boundary information extracted
from an image depicting a continuous phenomenon, such as elevation or
temperature. The term isovalue means “single value,” and thus a
contour on such a map indicates the boundary between points above
this value and points below the value. It can be formed by considering
two-by-two arrays of adjacent data values as the corners of a rectangle
or square, and generating edges across this rectangle when one or more
values are on the opposite side of the isovalue from one or more of the
others.
Three-Dimensional Data:
As with two-dimensional data, three-dimensional spatial data may be
either discrete samples of a continuous phenomenon or a structure best
described via vertices, edges, and polygons. In reality, many visualizations
of science and engineering data contain a combination of these data
representations, such as air flow around a wing or stress attributes of a
mechanical part.
1 .Visualizing Explicit Surfaces:

An explicit surface is one that has been defined in one of two ways:
1. a list of three-dimensional vertices, a list of edges, i.e., connections
between the vertices (specified as a pair of indices into the vertex list),
and a list of planar polygon patches (usually specified as a fixed or
variable length list of indices into the edge list);
2. a set of parametric equations for defining the x-, y-, and z-coordinates of
points on the surface, along with an interconnection strategy (e.g., a
triangular or rectilinear grid) for computing the edges and patches. The
step size of the parameters can be used to control the smoothness of
the curved surface.

2.Visualizing Volume Data:

As pixels are to two-dimensional visualization, voxels, or volume elements, are to three-

dimensional visualization. Volume data is generally a sampling of a continuous phenomenon,
and can be either acquired via sensors (e.g. tomographic data sets) or generated via
simulations (e.g., computational fluid dynamics). In each case, we have one or more data
dimensions with regular or irregular positions, and the goal is to convey to the viewer the
structure, patterns, and anomalies within the data.

Most approaches to visualizing volume data fall into one of the

following categories :
Slicing techniques. Using a cut plane, either aligned with an axis or
arbitrarily oriented, probe the data to extract a two-dimensional slice of
the data, and then use one of the two-dimensional spatial data
visualization methods.

Isosurface techniques. Given a user-specified value, generate a surface

description and visualize it using one of the explicit surface visualization
techniques.
Direct volume rendering. Either cast rays into the volume and compute
a pixel value based on the data encountered by the ray, or project each
voxel onto the projection plane using some method of accumulating
effects on pixels.
Direct Volume Visualization Techniques. Direct volume rendering
means that no three-dimensional polygons are created for use with
traditional graphics rendering techniques. Rather, pixels in the resulting
image are computed on an individual basis, either by casting rays
through the pixel through the volume, or by projecting voxels onto the
plane of projection.

The basic process of rendering a volumetric data set starts by

transforming the positions of the voxels into the viewing coordinate
system, following the same procedure used in the traditional three-
dimensional graphics pipeline. This may or may not include perspective
distortion. The viewer must specify a view reference point (the origin of
the plane of projection), a view direction (the normal to the plane of
projection), the height and width of the image to be projected on the
plane of projection, and, for a perspective projection, the distance from
the camera to the plane of projection. The reader is referred to
textbooks on computer graphics for details of this process.

Once the voxels have been positioned, we have the option of either:

forward mapping—project each voxel onto the plane of projection and

determine which pixels will be affected and in what way;

inverse mapping, also called ray casting—send a ray from each pixel in
the plane of projection through the volume, sampling values along the
ray, and determining the resulting value for each pixel.

Combining Techniques:
Many effective visualizations are actually combinations of two or more
of the techniques . Each technique has its strengths and weaknesses in
terms of the types of information it can or cannot effectively visualize, so
a combined visualization, as long as occlusion is minimized, can generate
results that are the sum of the strengths. At the same time, more and
more problems require the simultaneous analysis of multiple data sets
to arrive at an informed result.
A. Slice Plus Isosurface:
The isosurface is capable of conveying surface structure, which is
difficult to obtain from volume slicing, even with animation of the slice
position. However, the isosurface only provides information on a single
value within the entire volume, with no indication of the distribution of
other values or the gradient (rate of change) of the selected value at
different locations.
The slice provides very detailed two-dimensional information, especially
with an appropriate choice of color assignments. It can convey to the
user the regions of relative uniformity, as well as those exhibiting
significant change. Another advantage is that the image slice can convey
nested regions of a particular value range, while the isosurface, in
general, will only display the outer-most surface.
B. Isosurface Plus Glyphs:
isosurfaces are useful for conveying details of three-dimensional
surfaces, but, in general, do not incorporate other aspects of the data.
Glyphs , such as the popular arrow glyph, can be used to display the
magnitude and direction of change within a data set, either as a gradient
in static data or a flow in dynamic data. The glyphs may be positioned in
close proximity to the isosurface, since these are known to be positions
of interest, or the positions may be controlled separately
C. Rubber Sheet plus Contour Lines and Color:
In this example, we start with a rubber sheet to convey a two-
dimensional field of values as a height field. This can reveal peaks and
valleys found in the data, and by creating a virtual landscape, we can
build on the users’ intuition about interpreting the data in a topographic
manner . We can augment this visualization by mapping color to the
elevation, thus making it easier to identify widely separated regions of
similar height . Finally, we can superimpose contour lines at certain
levels, making the gradient information much more apparent.