Tech Report CS-95-20

Exploiting Orthogonality in Three Dimensional Graphics for Visualizing Abstract Data

James Wen

June 1995

Abstract:

Using Three dimensional graphics to visualize abstract data presents an interesting challenge because, by definition, there is no physically intuitive counterpart to abstract data. Relatively little work has been done in exploring how to best utilize the third dimension to increase visualization capabilities beyond simply increasing the volume of data presented. This paper prsents a design principle that enriches the amount of semantic information that could be visualized by treating the third dimension not so much as one of three equivalent dimensions in three-space but as an independent channel of information.

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