Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 11
Making the Unseen Visible:
The Art of Visualization
ABSTRACT
Themes and examples examined in this chapter discuss the fast growing field of visualization. First, basic
terms: data, information, knowledge, dimensions, and variables are discussed before going into the visu-
alization issues. The next part of the text overviews some of the basics in visualization techniques: data-,
information-, and knowledge-visualization, and tells about tools and techniques used in visualization
such as data mining, clusters and biclustering, concept mapping, knowledge maps, network visualiza-
tion, Web-search result visualization, open source intelligence, visualization of the Semantic Web, visual
analytics, and tag cloud visualization. This is followed by some remarks on music visualization. The next
part of the chapter is about the meaning and the role of visualization in various kinds of presentations.
Discussion relates to concept visualization in visual learning, visualization in education, collaborative
visualization, professions that employ visualization skills, and well-known examples of visualization
that progress science. Comments on cultural heritage knowledge visualization conclude the chapter.
1. INTRODUCTION: FROM DATA TO
PICTURES AND THEN TO INSIGHT
graphic design, visual storytelling, and the use
of signs support visual communication of human
insight and understanding. As Rudolf Arnheim
(n.d.) put it, “All perceiving is also thinking, all
reasoning is also intuition, all observation is also
invention.“ Visualization uses visual imagery
and visual thinking to understand complex in-
formation, therefore it differs from a metaphor or
The following text examines the language of visu-
alization (often conceived as cross disciplinary),
the interactive culture of knowledge visualization,
and comprises some notes about the visual con-
tent analysis applied to data and knowledge. Art,
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4703-9.ch011
