Rapid Prototyping for Coordinated Views of Multi-scale Spatial and Abstract Data: A Grammar-based Approach

Abstract
Visualization grammars are gaining popularity as they allow visualization specialists and experienced users to quickly create static and interactive views. Existing grammars, however, mostly focus on abstract views, ignoring three-dimensional (3D) views, which are very important in fields such as natural sciences. We propose a generalized interaction grammar for the problem of coordinating heterogeneous view types, such as standard charts (e.g., based on Vega-Lite) and 3D anatomical views. An important aspect of our web-based framework is that user interactions with data items at various levels of detail can be systematically integrated and used to control the overall layout of the application workspace. With the help of a concise JSON-based specification of the intended workflow, we can handle complex interactive visual analysis scenarios. This enables rapid prototyping and iterative refinement of the visual analysis tool in collaboration with domain experts. We illustrate the usefulness of our framework in two real-world case studies from the field of neuroscience. Since the logic of the presented grammar-based approach for handling interactions between heterogeneous web-based views is free of any application specifics, it can also serve as a template for applications beyond biological research.
Description

CCS Concepts: Human-centered computing -> Visual analytics; Software and its engineering -> Specification languages; Applied computing -> Biological networks

        
@inproceedings{
10.2312:vcbm.20231218
, booktitle = {
Eurographics Workshop on Visual Computing for Biology and Medicine
}, editor = {
Hansen, Christian
 and
Procter, James
 and
Renata G. Raidou
 and
Jönsson, Daniel
 and
Höllt, Thomas
}, title = {{
Rapid Prototyping for Coordinated Views of Multi-scale Spatial and Abstract Data: A Grammar-based Approach
}}, author = {
Harth, Philipp
 and
Bast, Arco
 and
Troidl, Jakob
 and
Meulemeester, Bjorge
 and
Pfister, Hanspeter
 and
Beyer, Johanna
 and
Oberlaender, Marcel
 and
Hege, Hans-Christian
 and
Baum, Daniel
}, year = {
2023
}, publisher = {
The Eurographics Association
}, ISSN = {
2070-5786
}, ISBN = {
978-3-03868-216-5
}, DOI = {
10.2312/vcbm.20231218
} }
Citation