Mapping Associations - Mapping Scientific Frontiers: The Quest for Knowledge Visualization - page 108

Fig. 3.15 Examples of virtual landscape views (© 2001 IEEE)

terms of a high redshift quasar that is far away from us could be formed a dozen of
billion years ago in the early universe. The notion of timeline is widely adopted in
many visualizations of abstract information. Most notably, the evolution of events
can be organized along a timeline. Although usually a timeline design tends to move
spatial patterns to the background to even vanished completely, there are visual
designs that intend to preserve and convey both spatial and temporal patterns in the
same display. A visual analytic system called GeoTime, for instance, successfully
accommodates spatial and temporal patterns. We will discuss visual analytics in
detail in the next few chapters.

3.2.5.1 Thematic Streams

A particularly influential design of timeline visualization is made by ThemeRiver.
The visualization is designed based on a simple and intuitive metaphor of a time