Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Apes developed a social warning system to com-
municate possible danger.
Humans do the same in different measures,
Even including art.
Artists' work can warn, challenge, and protect,
Against the social and cultural dangers.
Information Visualization, which provides
multivariate display of data such as semantic
networks or treemaps, uses interactive sensory
(mostly visual) representations of data to am-
plify cognition (Shneiderman, 1996). Informa-
tion Visualization supports exploring data (one-,
two-, three-dimensional data, temporal and multi-
dimensional data, and tree and network data).
Animations help understand dynamic systems
with interactive visualizations. Interactivity means
that users are able to change the image as they
work with the data. The data is transformed into
an image and mapped to screen space. Edward
Tufte presented in his topics (1983, 1990, 1997)
examples of visualizations from before the advent
of computers.
Figure 6 “Ideas and Dogmas” shows how
ideas, thoughts, and architectural insights got
their almost perfect embodiments created by the
masters in the city. Now we are filled with fear
that dogma, although considered to be absolutely
true, may destroy the work:
Metaphors maybe considered an inherent el-
ement of the artificial life studies, systems, and
simulations of life as it might be, as well as the
virtual worlds such as Second Life. A postmodern
literary critic in the field of electronic literature
Katherine Hayles (2010) argues that narratives
about and within the domain of artificial life
constitute a multilayered system of metaphoric
and material relays through which “life,” “nature,”
and the “human” are being redefined; she regards
the body itself as a congealed metaphor that is
resonant with cultural meanings. In 2006 Ralph
Lengler and Martin Eppler (2011) applied as a
metaphor a grid-like, tabular form of displaying
chemical elements, first devised in 1869 by the
Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev and known as
the Mendeleev's periodic table. They designed an
impressive interactive presentation of one hun-
dred visualization methods, “A Periodic Table of
Visualization Methods” translating each element
from the periodic table into particular meaning.
Data visualizations are visual representations
of quantitative data in schematic form; they often
take formats such as tables, pie or bar charts,
histograms, area charts, line graphs, or Cartesian
coordinates. Data visualization enables us to go
from the abstract numbers in a computer program
(ones and zeros) to visual interpretation of data.
Text visualization means converting textual in-
formation into graphic representation, so we can
see information without having to read particular
sets of the data. Burkhard, Meier, Smis, Allemang,
& Honish (2005) list types of visualization as
sketches, diagrams, images, maps, objects, interac-
tive visualizations, and stories. Virtual environ-
ment programs may also be constructed in a way
resembling a video game.
A fancy actually being in mind,
When the brain is weaker than the ego,
Seems to be absolutely true,
Unless we see disparate things differently.
Knowledge visualization uses visual repre-
sentations to transfer knowledge, rather than data
between people, to provide visual insight into the
data. It helps us to identify, access, share, discuss,
apply, and manage information, and understand
the field as a problem solver, not only to learn a
theory. Knowledge visualization focuses on the
transfer of knowledge among people by sharing
their insights, experiences, perspectives and pre-
dictions, in contrast with information visualization
that concentrates on the use of computer-supported
tools to explore large amount of data. Techniques
used for this purpose are focused on the users,
explanation (know-why, know-how), and presen-
tation of knowledge in various visual formats.
