InfoZoom Software presenter Andrew Trieu ICS 280 - Information Visualization Department ICS at UCI April 18, 2002

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InfoZoom Software presenterAndrew TrieuICS
280 - Information VisualizationDepartment ICS at
UCIApril 18, 2002
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InfoZoom

• InfoZoom is a unique tool to pinpoint and analyze
  information for decision-making.
• InfoZooms complementary views on your data let
  you discover patterns and relationships in
  context that can you can grasp and analyze via
  mouse click.
• InfoZoom lets you distill knowledge from data.
• Sources can be tables in plain ASCII format or
  any ODBC-capable database.

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InfoZoom (cont)

• InfoZoom lets you
• create and edit
• project and present
• Infoscapes

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Infoscapes

• Infoscape is the authors term for a new type
  of interactive communication media.
• An Infoscape is a projection without natural
  limitations to your ability to rearrange items
  very swiftly while you interact with it. And
  that is where focussing in on Objects in an
  Infoscape is really much more powerful than
  zooming in on a landscape.

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Example of Infoscapes

• Suppose you want to see a cathedral on the
  extreme right of your landscape a castle on the
  extreme left side by side in order to compare
  architectural details, no zoom lens in the world
  will do that for you. But in an Infoscape, you
  can easily display two initially remote items
  side by side to compare them in details InfoZoom
  will do that for you at the click of a button.

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Infoscapes Group of Functions

• Using InfoZoom and working with Infoscapes
  involves three groups of functions
• Editing the Infoscape
• Controlling the projection
• Documenting and presenting results

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Editing an Infoscape

• Editing an Infoscape is essentially a two-step
  process
• in the first step you modify the information set
  held in the RAM of your PC.
• in a second, independent step you may save the
  modifications in a file on disk.
• Note in some cases, you can not perform the
  second step because of file format. However, you
  can always modify the information set in RAM,
  which is essential for all sophisticated analyses.

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File Format

• InfoZoom reads and writes files in a number of
  formats
• Proprietary file format extension .fox
• Read-only file format extension .fop
• Chart file format extension .chf
• InfoZoom text file format extension .foc
• Import file format extension .txt
• Import file format extension .csv

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Controlling the Projection

• Controlling the projection that creates a new
  Infoscape is at the heart of using InfoZoom and
  working with Infoscape. It involves four groups
  of functions
• Focussing in on Attributes, i.e. bringing close
  together on your screen those Attributes rows
  that are relevant for the analyses at hand
• Choosing the most appropriate among the three
  views that the Infoscape can be displayed in

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Controlling the Projection (cont)

• Focussing in on Objects, i.e. displaying those
  (and only those) Objects that satisfy your
  criteria, and showing those details of Attribute
  values that you really need to know
• Sorting the Objects (columns) of an Infoscape by
  their values of an Attribute

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Focussing in on Attributes

• can be achieved by a combination of
• Moving Attribute rows,
• regrouping Attributes hierarchically,
• Hiding manually selected Attributes,
• Automatically hiding Attributes that do not help
  to further focus in on Objects.

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Choosing the appropriate view

• The Overview is the most compact projection.
  Each Attribute row is displayed like a horizontal
  stack of bars in a bar chart fitted to the width
  of the Infoscape window. Attribute values are
  sorted and combined in bars of identical values.
  Multi-value bars can represent similar Attribute
  values
• The Compressed Table view preserves the
  association of Attribute values to Objects.
  Objects are presented as columns in the table.
• The Wide Table view, which may extend
  horizontally beyond the Infoscape window, so you
  may have to scroll to inspect all Object columns.

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Overview view
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Compressed Table view
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Wide Table view
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Focussing in on Objects

• You focus in on Objects by creating a new
  Infoscape (a new projection) that
• eliminates all Objects with the selected or the
  non-selected Attribute values,
• sorts Objects in ascending or descending order of
  their Attribute values and groups together all
  Objects with identical values of a selected
  Attribute,
• magnifies all or selected columns or bars,
  displaying Attribute values that had been
  hidden in multi-object cells or multi-value
  bars.

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Documenting presenting results

• InfoZoom lets you print the Infoscape on any
  printer installed on your system and helps you to
  keep the printed pages organized
• The Print Preview function les you resize an
  Infoscape in Overview or Compressed Table view so
  it fits nicely on the printed page.
• InfoZoom lets you create elaborate business
  graphics from your selection of the Infoscape
  data. Include these charts in your screen
  presentation or your printed report.