Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Visual attribute research
Bertin [Ber67] originally identified shape as a potentially useful visual
variable for representing categorical data, although he did not go into
detail regarding additional shape-based attributes. Bertin is somewhat
sceptical regarding the use of shape, and comments that it is “tempting to
abuse it.” He has numerous examples of poor use of shape within a visual
display.
Several researchers have expanded the list of visual attributes applicable to
information visualization:
Table of
Shape Attributes
by Researcher
and Domain
Information Visualization
Vision
Transform
Position
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Length
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Size (Area)
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Orientation
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Volume
X
X
X
X
Shape
Shape
(Form)
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Angle X X X X
Curvature X X X X
Mark X X X
Line Ending X X X
Closure X X X
cal arp X
Edge Type X X
r er e X
Table 3.1.
List of shape-based visual attributes for information visualization as
identified by various pieces of research. The first section, Transform, indicates
visual properties that can be described by simple geometric transformations such
as scale, rotation and translation and is included for reference and is not the subject
of this chapter. The second section, Shape, is the focus of this chapter. Each X in
the pre-attentive perception column indicates a visual attribute identified as pre-
attentive, from various researchers, e.g. [Hea09]. The final column provides a more
expansive list of shape attributes, as outlined in this chapter.
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