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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lin, Justin, Fukuyama, Julia
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.04603
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author Lin, Justin
Fukuyama, Julia
author_facet Lin, Justin
Fukuyama, Julia
contents When faced with new data, we often conduct a cluster analysis to obtain a better understanding of the data's structure and the archetypical samples present in the data. This process often includes visualization of the data, either as a way to discover or verify clusters. However, the increases in data complexity and dimensionality has made this step very tricky. To visualize data, nonlinear dimension reduction methods are the de facto standard for their ability to non-uniformly stretch and shrink space in order to preserve local clusters. Because this process requires a drastic manipulation of space, however, nonlinear dimension reduction methods are known to produce false structures, especially when mishandled. A common consequence that often goes undetected by the untrained eye is over-clustering of the data. In efforts to deal with this phenomenon, we developed an interactive tool that empowers analysts to distinguish false clusters and better interpret their high-dimensional clustering results. The tool uses various analytical plots to provide a multi-faceted perspective on the data's global structure as well as local inter-cluster relationships, helping users determine the legitimacy of their high-dimensional clustering results. The tool is available via an R package named DRtool.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_04603
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle DRtool: An Interactive Tool for Analyzing High-Dimensional Clusterings
Lin, Justin
Fukuyama, Julia
Applications
Machine Learning
When faced with new data, we often conduct a cluster analysis to obtain a better understanding of the data's structure and the archetypical samples present in the data. This process often includes visualization of the data, either as a way to discover or verify clusters. However, the increases in data complexity and dimensionality has made this step very tricky. To visualize data, nonlinear dimension reduction methods are the de facto standard for their ability to non-uniformly stretch and shrink space in order to preserve local clusters. Because this process requires a drastic manipulation of space, however, nonlinear dimension reduction methods are known to produce false structures, especially when mishandled. A common consequence that often goes undetected by the untrained eye is over-clustering of the data. In efforts to deal with this phenomenon, we developed an interactive tool that empowers analysts to distinguish false clusters and better interpret their high-dimensional clustering results. The tool uses various analytical plots to provide a multi-faceted perspective on the data's global structure as well as local inter-cluster relationships, helping users determine the legitimacy of their high-dimensional clustering results. The tool is available via an R package named DRtool.
title DRtool: An Interactive Tool for Analyzing High-Dimensional Clusterings
topic Applications
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.04603