Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
here are many historical accounts of developments within the fields of proba-
bility (Hald,
), statistics (Pearson,
; Porter,
; Stigler,
), astronomy
(Riddell,
) and cartography (Wallis and Robinson,
), which relate to, inter
alia, some of the important developments contributing to modern data visualiza-
tion. here are other, more specialized, accounts which focus on the early history
of graphic recording (Hoff and Geddes,
,
), statistical graphs (Funkhouser,
,
; Royston,
; Tilling,
), fitting equations to empirical data (Fare-
brother,
), economics and time-series graphs (Klein,
), cartography (Friis,
; Kruskal,
) and thematic mapping (Robinson,
; Palsky,
) and so
forth; Robinson (Robinson,
, Chap.
) presents an excellent overview of some
of the important scientific, intellectual and technical developments of the
th-
th
centuries leading to thematic cartography and statistical thinking. Wainer and Velle-
man (
) provide a recent account of some of the history of statistical graphics.
But there are no accounts which span the entire development of visual thinking
andthe visual representation of data and whichcollate the contributions of disparate
disciplines. Inasmuch as their histories are intertwined, so too should be any telling
of the development of data visualization. Another reason for interweaving these ac-
counts is that practitioners in these fields today tend to be highly specialized and
unaware of related developments in areas outside their domain, much less of their
history.
Milestones Tour
1.2
Every picture tells a story.
-RodStewart,
Inorganizingthishistory,itprovedusefultodividehistoryintoepochs,eachofwhich
turnedouttobedescribablebycoherentthemesandlabels.hisdivisionis,ofcourse,
somewhat artificial, but it provides the opportunity to characterize the accomplish-
ments ineach periodinageneral waybeforedescribing someofthem inmoredetail.
Figure
.
, discussed in Sect.
.
.
, provides a graphic overview of the epochs I de-
scribe in the subsections below, showing the frequency of events considered mile-
stones in the periods of this history. For now, it su
ces to note the labels attached to
these epochs, a steady rise from the early
th century to the late
th century, with
a curious wiggle thereater.
In the larger picture - recounting the history of data visualization - it turns out
that many of the milestone items have a story to be told: What motivated this de-
velopment? What was the communication goal? How does it relate to other devel-
opments - What were the precursors? How has this idea been used or re-invented
today?Eachsection belowtries toillustrate the general themes with afewexemplars.
Inparticular,thisaccountattemptstotellafewrepresentativestoriesoftheseperiods,
rather than to try to be comprehensive.
For reasons of economy, only a limited number of images could be printed here,
and these only in black and white. Others are referred to by Web links, mostly from
