BlockSets: A Structured Visualization for Sets with Large Elements

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Novakova, Neda, Todorov, Veselin, Broek, Steven van den, Dwyer, Tim, Speckmann, Bettina
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Novakova, Neda
Todorov, Veselin
Broek, Steven van den
Dwyer, Tim
Speckmann, Bettina
author_facet Novakova, Neda
Todorov, Veselin
Broek, Steven van den
Dwyer, Tim
Speckmann, Bettina
contents Visualizations of set systems frequently use enclosing geometries for the sets in combination with reduced representations of the elements, such as short text labels, small glyphs, or points. Hence they are generally unable to adequately represent sets whose elements are larger text fragments, images, or charts. In this paper we introduce BlockSets, a novel set visualization technique specifically designed for sets with large elements. BlockSets places the elements on a grid and uses rectilinear shapes as enclosing geometries. We describe integer linear programs that find high-quality layouts of the elements on the grid. Since not all set systems allow a compact contiguous representation in this form, we also present an algorithm that splits the visualization into parts when needed; our visual encoding highlights the parts for the user in the final visualization. BlockSets utilizes orthoconvex shapes which offer a good trade-off between compactness and readability. Finally, BlockSets renders the enclosing geometries as stacked opaque shapes. We describe an algorithm that finds a stacking order such that all shapes can be inferred. Such a stacking does not have to exist, but our algorithm did find a stacking for all real-world data sets that we tested.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_18055
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle BlockSets: A Structured Visualization for Sets with Large Elements
Novakova, Neda
Todorov, Veselin
Broek, Steven van den
Dwyer, Tim
Speckmann, Bettina
Computational Geometry
Visualizations of set systems frequently use enclosing geometries for the sets in combination with reduced representations of the elements, such as short text labels, small glyphs, or points. Hence they are generally unable to adequately represent sets whose elements are larger text fragments, images, or charts. In this paper we introduce BlockSets, a novel set visualization technique specifically designed for sets with large elements. BlockSets places the elements on a grid and uses rectilinear shapes as enclosing geometries. We describe integer linear programs that find high-quality layouts of the elements on the grid. Since not all set systems allow a compact contiguous representation in this form, we also present an algorithm that splits the visualization into parts when needed; our visual encoding highlights the parts for the user in the final visualization. BlockSets utilizes orthoconvex shapes which offer a good trade-off between compactness and readability. Finally, BlockSets renders the enclosing geometries as stacked opaque shapes. We describe an algorithm that finds a stacking order such that all shapes can be inferred. Such a stacking does not have to exist, but our algorithm did find a stacking for all real-world data sets that we tested.
title BlockSets: A Structured Visualization for Sets with Large Elements
topic Computational Geometry
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.18055