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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Wong, Yuet Ling, Elmqvist, Niklas
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.17320
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author Wong, Yuet Ling
Elmqvist, Niklas
author_facet Wong, Yuet Ling
Elmqvist, Niklas
contents Discrete event sequences serve as models for numerous real-world datasets, including publications over time, project milestones, and medication dosing during patient treatments. These event sequences typically exhibit bursty behavior, where events cluster together in rapid succession, interspersed with periods of inactivity. Standard timeline charts with linear time axes fail to adequately represent such data, resulting in cluttered regions during event bursts while leaving other areas unutilized. We introduce EventLines, a novel technique that dynamically adjusts the time scale to match the underlying event distribution, enabling more efficient use of screen space. To address the challenges of non-linear time scaling, EventLines employs the time axis's visual representation itself to communicate the varying scale. We present findings from a crowdsourced graphical perception study that examines how different time scale representations influence temporal perception.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_17320
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle EventLines: Time Compression for Discrete Event Timelines
Wong, Yuet Ling
Elmqvist, Niklas
Human-Computer Interaction
Discrete event sequences serve as models for numerous real-world datasets, including publications over time, project milestones, and medication dosing during patient treatments. These event sequences typically exhibit bursty behavior, where events cluster together in rapid succession, interspersed with periods of inactivity. Standard timeline charts with linear time axes fail to adequately represent such data, resulting in cluttered regions during event bursts while leaving other areas unutilized. We introduce EventLines, a novel technique that dynamically adjusts the time scale to match the underlying event distribution, enabling more efficient use of screen space. To address the challenges of non-linear time scaling, EventLines employs the time axis's visual representation itself to communicate the varying scale. We present findings from a crowdsourced graphical perception study that examines how different time scale representations influence temporal perception.
title EventLines: Time Compression for Discrete Event Timelines
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.17320