Information Visualization
Perception for Design
- 1st Edition - January 21, 2000
- Latest edition
- Author: Colin Ware
- Language: English
This is the first book to combine a strictly scientific approach tohuman perception with a practical concern for the rules governing theeffective visual presentation of informatio… Read more
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Description
Description
This is the first book to combine a strictly scientific approach to
human perception with a practical concern for the rules governing the
effective visual presentation of information. Surveying the research
of leading psychologists and neurophysiologists, the author isolates
key principles at work in vision and perception, and from them, derives
specific, effective visualization techniques, suitable for a wide range
of scenarios. You can apply these principles in ways to optimize how
others perceive visual information-resulting in improved clarity,
utility, and persuasiveness. Likewise, you can apply them to your
own exploratory data analyses to develop display strategies that
make data patterns and their significance easier to discern.
Information Visualization transcends the often-divergent approaches to
visualization taken by individual disciplines. It will prove a
fascinating, practical resource for anyone who uses graphical
presentation as a key to successful analysis and communication:
graphic artists, user interface/interaction designers, financial
analysts, data miners, and managers faced with information-intensive
challenges.
Key features
Key features
* Brings current scientific insight to the study of data visualization.
* Explains multiple facets of visual perception: color, organization, space, motion, texture, and the relationship between images and words.
* Explores strategies for designing glyphs and icons to optimize a GUI's effectiveness and ease of use.
* Examines the distinctions between word-based and image-based perception and develops guidelines for choosing between verbal and graphical communication approaches.
* Presents successful techniques for displaying geographical and other data in multiple layers.
* Offers rules for designing easily navigable data spaces in VRML.
* Supports points with numerous illustrations, including over thirty color images.
* Explains multiple facets of visual perception: color, organization, space, motion, texture, and the relationship between images and words.
* Explores strategies for designing glyphs and icons to optimize a GUI's effectiveness and ease of use.
* Examines the distinctions between word-based and image-based perception and develops guidelines for choosing between verbal and graphical communication approaches.
* Presents successful techniques for displaying geographical and other data in multiple layers.
* Offers rules for designing easily navigable data spaces in VRML.
* Supports points with numerous illustrations, including over thirty color images.
Readership
Readership
Visualisation researchers, visualisation designers and users of data visualisation packages
Table of contents
Table of contents
Chapter 1: Foundation for a Science of Data Visualization
Visualization Stages
Experimental Semiotics Based on Perception
Semiotics of graphics
Pictures as sensory languages
Sensory vs arbitrary symbols
Properties of sensory and arbitrary representation
Testing claims about sensory representations
1. Psychophysics.
2. Cognitive psychology
3. Structural analysis
4. Cross cultural studies:
5. Child Studies
Arbitrary conventional representations
The study of arbitrary conventional symbols
Gibson's Affordance Theory
A Model of Perceptual Processing
Stage 1: Parallel Processing to extract low level properties of the visual scene.
Stage 2. Sequential goal directed processing
Types of Data
Entities
Relationships
Attributes of entities or relationships
Attribute quality
Attribute dimensions: 1D, 2D, 3D ...
Operations considered as data
Meta-data
Conclusion
Chapter 2: The Environment, Optics, Resolution and the Display
The Environment
Visible light
Ecological optics
Optical flow
Textured surfaces and texture gradients
The paint model of surfaces
The Eye
Visual angle defined
The lens
Focus and augmented reality systems
Focus in virtual reality displays
Chromatic aberration
Receptors
Simple acuities
Acuity distribution and the visual field
Spatial contrast sensitivity function
Visual stress
The Optimal Display
Aliasing
Number of dots
Super acuities and displays
Temporal requirements of the perfect display
Conclusion
Chapter 3: Lightness, Brightness, Contrast and Constancy
Neurons, Receptive Fields and Brightness Illusions
Simultaneous brightness contrast
Mach Bands
Chevreul illusion
Simultaneous Contrast and errors in reading maps
Contrast Effects and Artifacts in Computer Graphics
Luminance, Brightness, Lightness and Gamma
Luminance
Brightness
Monitor gamma
Adaptation, Contrast and Lightness Constancy
Contrast and Constancy
Contrast on Paper and on Screen
Perception of surface lightness
Lightness differences and the gray scale
Contrast crispening
Monitor illumination and monitor surrounds
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: Color
Trichromacy Theory
Color Blindness
Color Measurement
Change of primaries
CIE System of Color Standards
Chromaticity coordinates
Color differences and uniform color spaces
Opponent process theory
Naming
Cross cultural naming
Unique Hues
Neurophysiology
Categorical Colors
Properties of color channels
Spatial sensitivity
Stereoscopic depth:
Temporal sensitivity
Form
Color Appearance
Saturation
Brown
Applications of Color in Visualization
Application 1: Color specification interfaces, and color spaces
Color spaces
Color naming
Color palette
Application 2: Color for labeling
Application 3: Color sequences for maps
Application 4: Color reproduction
Application 5: Color for exploring multi-dimensional discrete data
Conclusion
Chapter 5: Visual Attention and Information that Pops Out
Eye Movements
1) Saccadic movements
2) Smooth pursuit movements
3) Convergent movements
Accommodation
Visual Attention, Searching and System Monitoring.
Eye movements, attention and the useful field of view
Supervisory control
Visual monitoring strategies
The useful field of view
Tunnel vision and stress
The role of motion in attracting attention
Reading from the Iconic Buffer
Pre-attentive processing
Rapid area judgements
Coding with combinations of features
Conjunctions with spatial dimensions
Designing a symbol set
Neural Processing, Graphemes and Tuned Receptors
The grapheme
The Gabor Model and Texture in Visualization
Texture segmentation
Tradeoffs in information density - an uncertainty principle
Texture coding information
The primary perceptual dimensions of texture
The generation of distinct textures.
Spatial frequency channels, orthogonality and maps
Texture resolution
Texture contrast effects
Other dimensions of visual texture
Glyps and Multivariate Discrete Data
Integral/seperable dimension pairs
Multi-dimensional discrete data
Stars, whiskers and other glyphs.
Polarity of visual attributes
Conclusion
Chapter 6: Static and Moving Patterns
Gestalt laws
1) Proximity
2) Similarity
3) Continuity
4) Symmetry
5) Closure
6) Relative Size
7) Figure and Ground
More on Contours
Perceiving direction: representing vector fields
Perception of Transparency: Overlapping Data
Patterns in Motion
Form and contour in motion
Moving frames
Expressive motion
Perception of causality
Perception of animate motion
Enriching diagrams with simple animation
Conclusion
References
Chapter 7: Visual Objects and Data Objects
Image Based Object Recognition
Applications of images in user interfaces
Searching an image database
Personal image memory banks
Structure Based Object Recognition
Geon theory
Silhouettes
The Object Display and Object Based Diagrams
The geon diagram
Perceiving the Surface Shape of Objects
Spatial cues for representing scalar fields
1) Shading models
2) Surface texture
3) Stereoscopic viewing
4) Structure from motion
Integration of cues for surface shape
Interaction of shading and contour
Guidelines for displaying surfaces
Bivariate maps: lighting and surface color
Integration
Conclusion
Chapter 8: Space Perception and 3D Data Display
Depth Cue Theory
Perspective cues
Pictures seen from the wrong viewpoint
Occlusion
Depth of focus
Cast shadows
Shape from shading
Structure from motion
Eye convergence
Stereoscopic depth
Problems with stereoscopic displays
Frame cancellation
The vergence focus problem
Distant objects
Making effective stereoscopic displays
Cyclopean scale
Virtual eye separation
Artificial spatial cues
Depth cues in combination
Task Based Space Perception
1)Tracing data paths in 3D
2) Judging the morphology of surfaces. Surface target detection.
3) Patterns of points in 3D space.
4) Judging relative positions of objects in space
5) Judging the relative movement of self within the enviroment.
6) Judging the Up direction
7) The aesthetic impression of 3D space. (presence).
Conclusion
Chapter 9: Images and Words
Coding Words and Images
The nature of language
Sign language
Language is dynamic and distributed over time
Visual and Spoken Language
Images versus Words
Linking visual and verbal material
Deictic gestures
Using Animation
Visual momentum in animated sequences
Animated visual languages
Conclusion
References
Chapter 10: Visually Mediated Interaction with Data
Perceptual frames of reference
1) Retinotopic foveal
2) Stable feature frame. Egocentric coordinates
3) Environmental frame
4) World knowledge formulary
Visually mediated control
Choice reaction time
2D positioning and selection.
Skill learning
Control Compatibility
Vigilance
Rapid interaction with data
Interactive Data-Display
View navigation
Locomotion and viewpoint control
Spatial navigation metaphors
Wayfinding and map reading
Map orientation
Focus, context and scale
Spatial scale
Temporal scale
Distortion techniques
Rapid zooming techniques
Elision techniques
Multiple windows
Problem Solving and Visualization
Long term memory
Memory extension
Visual spatial reasoning
Concept maps and mind maps
Creative problem solving
Conclusion
Visualization Stages
Experimental Semiotics Based on Perception
Semiotics of graphics
Pictures as sensory languages
Sensory vs arbitrary symbols
Properties of sensory and arbitrary representation
Testing claims about sensory representations
1. Psychophysics.
2. Cognitive psychology
3. Structural analysis
4. Cross cultural studies:
5. Child Studies
Arbitrary conventional representations
The study of arbitrary conventional symbols
Gibson's Affordance Theory
A Model of Perceptual Processing
Stage 1: Parallel Processing to extract low level properties of the visual scene.
Stage 2. Sequential goal directed processing
Types of Data
Entities
Relationships
Attributes of entities or relationships
Attribute quality
Attribute dimensions: 1D, 2D, 3D ...
Operations considered as data
Meta-data
Conclusion
Chapter 2: The Environment, Optics, Resolution and the Display
The Environment
Visible light
Ecological optics
Optical flow
Textured surfaces and texture gradients
The paint model of surfaces
The Eye
Visual angle defined
The lens
Focus and augmented reality systems
Focus in virtual reality displays
Chromatic aberration
Receptors
Simple acuities
Acuity distribution and the visual field
Spatial contrast sensitivity function
Visual stress
The Optimal Display
Aliasing
Number of dots
Super acuities and displays
Temporal requirements of the perfect display
Conclusion
Chapter 3: Lightness, Brightness, Contrast and Constancy
Neurons, Receptive Fields and Brightness Illusions
Simultaneous brightness contrast
Mach Bands
Chevreul illusion
Simultaneous Contrast and errors in reading maps
Contrast Effects and Artifacts in Computer Graphics
Luminance, Brightness, Lightness and Gamma
Luminance
Brightness
Monitor gamma
Adaptation, Contrast and Lightness Constancy
Contrast and Constancy
Contrast on Paper and on Screen
Perception of surface lightness
Lightness differences and the gray scale
Contrast crispening
Monitor illumination and monitor surrounds
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: Color
Trichromacy Theory
Color Blindness
Color Measurement
Change of primaries
CIE System of Color Standards
Chromaticity coordinates
Color differences and uniform color spaces
Opponent process theory
Naming
Cross cultural naming
Unique Hues
Neurophysiology
Categorical Colors
Properties of color channels
Spatial sensitivity
Stereoscopic depth:
Temporal sensitivity
Form
Color Appearance
Saturation
Brown
Applications of Color in Visualization
Application 1: Color specification interfaces, and color spaces
Color spaces
Color naming
Color palette
Application 2: Color for labeling
Application 3: Color sequences for maps
Application 4: Color reproduction
Application 5: Color for exploring multi-dimensional discrete data
Conclusion
Chapter 5: Visual Attention and Information that Pops Out
Eye Movements
1) Saccadic movements
2) Smooth pursuit movements
3) Convergent movements
Accommodation
Visual Attention, Searching and System Monitoring.
Eye movements, attention and the useful field of view
Supervisory control
Visual monitoring strategies
The useful field of view
Tunnel vision and stress
The role of motion in attracting attention
Reading from the Iconic Buffer
Pre-attentive processing
Rapid area judgements
Coding with combinations of features
Conjunctions with spatial dimensions
Designing a symbol set
Neural Processing, Graphemes and Tuned Receptors
The grapheme
The Gabor Model and Texture in Visualization
Texture segmentation
Tradeoffs in information density - an uncertainty principle
Texture coding information
The primary perceptual dimensions of texture
The generation of distinct textures.
Spatial frequency channels, orthogonality and maps
Texture resolution
Texture contrast effects
Other dimensions of visual texture
Glyps and Multivariate Discrete Data
Integral/seperable dimension pairs
Multi-dimensional discrete data
Stars, whiskers and other glyphs.
Polarity of visual attributes
Conclusion
Chapter 6: Static and Moving Patterns
Gestalt laws
1) Proximity
2) Similarity
3) Continuity
4) Symmetry
5) Closure
6) Relative Size
7) Figure and Ground
More on Contours
Perceiving direction: representing vector fields
Perception of Transparency: Overlapping Data
Patterns in Motion
Form and contour in motion
Moving frames
Expressive motion
Perception of causality
Perception of animate motion
Enriching diagrams with simple animation
Conclusion
References
Chapter 7: Visual Objects and Data Objects
Image Based Object Recognition
Applications of images in user interfaces
Searching an image database
Personal image memory banks
Structure Based Object Recognition
Geon theory
Silhouettes
The Object Display and Object Based Diagrams
The geon diagram
Perceiving the Surface Shape of Objects
Spatial cues for representing scalar fields
1) Shading models
2) Surface texture
3) Stereoscopic viewing
4) Structure from motion
Integration of cues for surface shape
Interaction of shading and contour
Guidelines for displaying surfaces
Bivariate maps: lighting and surface color
Integration
Conclusion
Chapter 8: Space Perception and 3D Data Display
Depth Cue Theory
Perspective cues
Pictures seen from the wrong viewpoint
Occlusion
Depth of focus
Cast shadows
Shape from shading
Structure from motion
Eye convergence
Stereoscopic depth
Problems with stereoscopic displays
Frame cancellation
The vergence focus problem
Distant objects
Making effective stereoscopic displays
Cyclopean scale
Virtual eye separation
Artificial spatial cues
Depth cues in combination
Task Based Space Perception
1)Tracing data paths in 3D
2) Judging the morphology of surfaces. Surface target detection.
3) Patterns of points in 3D space.
4) Judging relative positions of objects in space
5) Judging the relative movement of self within the enviroment.
6) Judging the Up direction
7) The aesthetic impression of 3D space. (presence).
Conclusion
Chapter 9: Images and Words
Coding Words and Images
The nature of language
Sign language
Language is dynamic and distributed over time
Visual and Spoken Language
Images versus Words
Linking visual and verbal material
Deictic gestures
Using Animation
Visual momentum in animated sequences
Animated visual languages
Conclusion
References
Chapter 10: Visually Mediated Interaction with Data
Perceptual frames of reference
1) Retinotopic foveal
2) Stable feature frame. Egocentric coordinates
3) Environmental frame
4) World knowledge formulary
Visually mediated control
Choice reaction time
2D positioning and selection.
Skill learning
Control Compatibility
Vigilance
Rapid interaction with data
Interactive Data-Display
View navigation
Locomotion and viewpoint control
Spatial navigation metaphors
Wayfinding and map reading
Map orientation
Focus, context and scale
Spatial scale
Temporal scale
Distortion techniques
Rapid zooming techniques
Elision techniques
Multiple windows
Problem Solving and Visualization
Long term memory
Memory extension
Visual spatial reasoning
Concept maps and mind maps
Creative problem solving
Conclusion
Product details
Product details
- Edition: 1
- Latest edition
- Published: January 21, 2000
- Language: English
About the author
About the author
CW
Colin Ware
Colin Ware is the world’s leading authority on the perceptual principles underlying the effective design of information displays. He combines interests in both basic and applied visualization research and he has advanced degrees in both computer science (MMath, Waterloo) and in the psychology of perception (PhD,Toronto). He has published over 160 articles in scientific and technical journals and at leading conferences. Many of these articles relate to the use of color, texture, motion and 3D displays in information visualization. His approach is always to combine theory with practice and his publications range from rigorously scientific contributions to the Journal of Physiology and Vision Research to applications oriented articles in ACM Transactions on Graphics and ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction. Fledermaus, the leading visualization software used in oceanography, originated in software developed by him and his graduate students.
Affiliations and expertise
Data Visualization Research Lab, University of New Hampshire, Durham, USA