THE MULTIPLE VISUAL ATTRIBUTES OF SHAPE - Information Visualisation: Techniques, Usability and Evaluation - page 53

Heraldry also uses boundaries, and has a long tradition of formalizing
different types of boundaries with rules for combining them (Fig. 3.16):
Fig. 3.16. Sample lines from heraldry [Fea08] .
Graphic design is not bound by a set of formal rules; however, potential
shape-based attributes may be outlined in textbooks and guides or may be
inferred from large samples of design (Fig. 3.17). Based on a review of
icon categories at Logo Lounge (logolounge.com) and graphic design texts
(e.g. [Dre72], [Kra04]), the following attributes are useful for the design of
visualization glyphs and are included in the shape feature list on Table 1:
x Edge type
x Corner type
x Warp
x Notch
Fig. 3.17. Left: Logos categorized as “particle fields” and “blankets” by Logo
Lounge, all displaying warping. Far right: Sample corners, redrawn based on
[Kra04].
Anecdotal evidence of the use of many attributes of shape can be found
in many domains. For example, the children's puzzle topics “Eye Spy”
require the use of shape to search visually and identify objects. Visual
aircraft recognition relies on identification of the compound shape
resulting from the combination of wings, engines, fuselage and tail
(Wikipedia: aircraft recognition [USA09] ). Wordless instruction manuals,
such as LEGO and IKEA rely heavily on identification of pieces by shape
(Fig 3.18).