Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Examples of Existing Glyphs
7.4
he following list (from Ward,
) contains a subset of glyphs that have been de-
scribed in the literature or are in common use. Some are customized to a particular
application, such as visualizing fluid flow, while others are more general purpose. In
a later section we examine many of these mappings and try to identify some of their
strengths and weaknesses.
Profiles (du Toit,
): height and color of bars (Fig.
.
a).
Stars (Siegel et al.,
): length of evenly spaced rays emanating from center
(Fig.
.
b).
Anderson/metroglyphs (Anderson,
; Gnanadesikan,
): length of rays
(Fig.
.
b).
Stick figures (Pickett and Grinstein,
): length, angle, color of limbs (Fig.
.
c).
Trees (Kleiner and Hartigan,
): length, thickness, angles of branches; branch
structure derived from analyzing relations between dimensions (Fig.
.
c).
Autoglyph (Beddow,
): color of boxes (Fig.
.
d).
Boxes (Hartigan,
): height, width, depth of first box; height of successive
boxes (Fig.
.
d).
Hedgehogs(KlassenandHarrington,
):spikesonavectorfield,withvariation
in orientation, thickness, and taper.
Faces(Chernoff,
):sizeandpositionofeyes,nose,mouth;curvatureofmouth;
angle of eyebrows (Fig.
.
e).
Arrows(Wittenbrink etal.,
):length,width,taper,andcolorofbaseandhead
(Fig.
.
f).
Polygons (Schroederetal.,
):conveying local deformation inavectorfieldvia
orientation and shape changes.
Dashtubes (Fuhrmann and Groller,
): texture and opacity to convey vector
field data.
Weathervanes (Friedman et al.,
): level in bulb, length of flags (Fig.
.
f).
Circular profiles (Mezzich and Worthington,
): distance from center to ver-
tices at equal angles.
Color glyphs (Levkowitz,
): colored lines across a box.
Bugs (Chuah and Eick,
): wing shapes controlled by time series; length of
head spikes (antennae); size and color of tail; size of body markings.
Wheels(Chuah andEick,
):timewheelscreate ringof timeseries plots,value
controls distance from base ring;
-D wheel maps time to height, variable value
to radius.
Boids(Kerlick,
):shapeandorientationofprimitivesmovingthroughatime-
varying field.
Procedural shapes (Rohrer et al.,
; Ebert et al.,
): blobby objects con-
trolled by up to
dimensions.
Glyphmaker (Ribarsky et al.,
): user-controlled mappings.
Icon Modeling Language (Post et al.,
): attributes of a
-D contour and the
parameters that extrude it to
-D and further transform/deform it.
