Comparative Evaluation of Animated Scatter Plot Transitions

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Rodrigues, Nils, Dennig, Frederik L., Brandt, Vincent, Keim, Daniel A., Weiskopf, Daniel
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Rodrigues, Nils
Dennig, Frederik L.
Brandt, Vincent
Keim, Daniel A.
Weiskopf, Daniel
author_facet Rodrigues, Nils
Dennig, Frederik L.
Brandt, Vincent
Keim, Daniel A.
Weiskopf, Daniel
contents Scatter plots are popular for displaying 2D data, but in practice, many data sets have more than two dimensions. For the analysis of such multivariate data, it is often necessary to switch between scatter plots of different dimension pairs, e.g., in a scatter plot matrix (SPLOM). Alternative approaches include a "grand tour" for an overview of the entire data set or creating artificial axes from dimensionality reduction (DR). A cross-cutting concern in all techniques is the ability of viewers to find correspondence between data points in different views. Previous work proposed animations to preserve the mental map between view changes and to trace points as well as clusters between scatter plots of the same underlying data set. In this paper, we evaluate a variety of spline- and rotation-based view transitions in a crowdsourced user study focusing on ecological validity. Using the study results, we assess each animation's suitability for tracing points and clusters across view changes. We evaluate whether the order of horizontal and vertical rotation is relevant for task accuracy. The results show that rotations with an orthographic camera or staged expansion of a depth axis significantly outperform all other animation techniques for the traceability of individual points. Further, we provide a ranking of the animated transition techniques for traceability of individual points. However, we could not find any significant differences for the traceability of clusters. Furthermore, we identified differences by animation direction that could guide further studies to determine potential confounds for these differences. We publish the study data for reuse and provide the animation framework as a D3.js plug-in.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_04692
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Comparative Evaluation of Animated Scatter Plot Transitions
Rodrigues, Nils
Dennig, Frederik L.
Brandt, Vincent
Keim, Daniel A.
Weiskopf, Daniel
Human-Computer Interaction
Scatter plots are popular for displaying 2D data, but in practice, many data sets have more than two dimensions. For the analysis of such multivariate data, it is often necessary to switch between scatter plots of different dimension pairs, e.g., in a scatter plot matrix (SPLOM). Alternative approaches include a "grand tour" for an overview of the entire data set or creating artificial axes from dimensionality reduction (DR). A cross-cutting concern in all techniques is the ability of viewers to find correspondence between data points in different views. Previous work proposed animations to preserve the mental map between view changes and to trace points as well as clusters between scatter plots of the same underlying data set. In this paper, we evaluate a variety of spline- and rotation-based view transitions in a crowdsourced user study focusing on ecological validity. Using the study results, we assess each animation's suitability for tracing points and clusters across view changes. We evaluate whether the order of horizontal and vertical rotation is relevant for task accuracy. The results show that rotations with an orthographic camera or staged expansion of a depth axis significantly outperform all other animation techniques for the traceability of individual points. Further, we provide a ranking of the animated transition techniques for traceability of individual points. However, we could not find any significant differences for the traceability of clusters. Furthermore, we identified differences by animation direction that could guide further studies to determine potential confounds for these differences. We publish the study data for reuse and provide the animation framework as a D3.js plug-in.
title Comparative Evaluation of Animated Scatter Plot Transitions
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.04692