Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
As well, experimental comparisons of the e
cacy of various graphics forms were
begun (Eells,
; von Huhn,
; Washburne,
), a set of standards and rules
for graphic presentation was finally adopted by a joint committee (Joint Commit-
tee on Standards for Graphic Presentation,
) and a number of practical aids to
graphing were developed. In the latter part of this period, new ideas and methods
for multidimensional data in statistics and psychology would provide the impetus to
look beyond the
-D plane.
Graphic innovation wasalsoawaiting newideas andtechnology:thedevelopment
of the machinery of modern statistical methodology, andthe advent of the computa-
tionalpoweranddisplaydeviceswhichwouldsupportthenextwaveofdevelopments
in data visualization.
1950-1975: Rebirth of Data Visualization
1.2.7
Stillundertheinfluenceoftheformalandnumerical zeitgeistfromthemid-
son,
data visualization began to rise from dormancy in the mid-
s. his was spurred
largely by three significant developments:
In the USA, John W. Tukey [
-
],in a landmark paper, he Future of Data
Analysis (Tukey,
), issued a call for the recognition of data analysis as a le-
gitimate branch of statistics distinct from mathematical statistics; shortly later,
he began the invention of a wide variety of new, simple and effective graphic dis-
plays,undertherubricof'exploratorydata analysis' (EDA)-stem-leafplots,box-
plots, hanging rootograms, two-way table displays and so forth, many of which
entered thestatistical vocabulary andsotware implementation. Tukey's stature as
astatistician and the scopeofhis informal, robustandgraphical approachtodata
analysis were as influential as his graphical innovations. Although not published
until
,chapters fromTukey's EDA book (Tukey,
)were widely circulated
as they began to appear in
-
and began to make graphical data analysis
both interesting and respectable again.
InFrance,JacquesBertin[
-]publishedthemonumentalSémiologie graphique
(Bertin,
). To some, this appeared to do for graphics what Mendeleev had
done for the organization of the chemical elements, that is, to organize the vi-
sual and perceptual elements of graphics according to the features and relations
in data. In a parallel but separate stream, an exploratory and graphical approach
to multidimensional data ('L'analyse des données') begun by Jean-Paul Benzécri
[
-]provided French and other European statisticians with an alternative, vi-
sually based view of what statistics was about. Other graphically minded schools
of data-thought would later arise in the Netherlands (Gifi), Germany and else-
where in Europe.
But the skills of hand-drawn maps and graphics had withered during the dor-
mant 'modern dark ages' of graphics (though nearly every figure in Tukey's EDA
(Tukey,
) was, by intention, hand-drawn). Computer processing of statisti-
cal data began in
with the creation of Fortran, the first high-level lan-
guage for computing. By the late
s, widespread mainframe university com-
putersofferedthepossibilitytoconstructoldandnewgraphicformsbycomputer
