Magic Lenses for Interactive Database Visualization

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Magic Lenses for Interactive Database
Visualization

• Ken Fishkin
• SoftBook Press, Inc.

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Standard WIMP

• all windows are opaque, self-contained
• exception zoom lenses are nice

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Magic Lenses

• Magic Lenses are Windows which know about whats
  below them, and/or whats above them.
• They can alter input, output, or both.
• They can be composed

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Magic Lenses - click through

• wouldnt it be nice if I could click through a
  zoom lens?

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Magic Lenses - composable

• and even nicer if they could compose?

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Magic Lenses - semantic

• and even nicer if they could be non-graphical?

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Magic Lenses - inter-app

• And even nicer if semantics were F(other windows)?

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To Recap

• Magic Lenses are Windows which know about whats
  below them, and/or whats above them.
• They can alter input, output, or both.
• They can be composed
• 3D possible

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Overall flow
(many)
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How do you implement it?

• Purely graphical lenses
• trap calls to event manager (input), graphics
  engine (output)
• Semantic lenses
• shared data, and/or protocol for passing objects
• Speed a big issue
• lots and lots of caching

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What This Buys You

• Multiple foci context

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Reify modes into objects
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Composability gives you spatial Unix pipes.

• Lets use it for data visualization...

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Traditional Database Queries

• Use a Special Language
• select title from movies where lead_actorConnery
  , Sean and (year lt 1960 or year gt 1975)
• Batch, non-visual

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Visual Representation of Databases

• Map each record to a point on the plane
• Since 1854 (at least)

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Dynamic Queries (example 1)

• One selector per attribute

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Dynamic Queries (example 2)

• Selectors filter the display

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Dynamic Queries (limitations)

• designed for a small number of attributes
• only global filters
• cant screen on an attribute more than once
• no disjunctions
• limited query set

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Hybrid Techniques

• language for leaves of the query,
• visual interface for compound queries
• Still not all queries supported

Content Date Content
Contains is before contains
Document Management 05/01/94 Visual Recall OS
And
Or
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Magic Lenses

• Movable local filters, which transform the data
  underneath them in some way, be it visual
  (magnifying lens), semantic (misspelled words),
  or other

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Merging Lenses into Queries

• Put one attribute selector on a lens.

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Free Wins(1) - local filters
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2 - repeated attributes
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3 - arbitrary number of attrs.

• Just stack em up.

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Consistent UI
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Query Power

• 2.5D order of windows implies a
  composition/evaluation order
• Put an AND/OR toggle on the lens to indicate how
  it should compose
• A AND B --gt ltA,ANDgt above ltBgt
• A OR B --gt ltA,ORgt above ltBgt

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And/or in action
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Query Power(2)

• NOT gets its own lens
• A AND NOT (B OR C)
• ltA,ANDgt
• ltNOTgt
• ltB,ORgt
• ltCgt

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Grouping

• Introduce compound (grouped) lenses
• Allows parenthesizing
• allows macros
• Conjunction Negation Grouping gt support for
  arbitrary Boolean queries

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Extensions

• No need to have just AND and OR - could have
  any/all of the 16 possible combinations.
• Could just have a NAND mode, but that would be
  non-intuitive. And/Or/Not are most common.

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Fuzzy Selectors

• Selectors need not be pass/fail.

True
1
False
0
1
True
False
0
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Selectors over 0..1
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Numerical Operators
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Fuzzy Composition

• Selectors on 0..1 implies composition on 0..1
• Replace AND by MIN, OR by MAX, NOT by complement
• Presently, have implemented arithmetic (DIFF),
  statistical (SQRT), and fuzzy (VERY)
• Many others possible

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Fuzzy example
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Missing Data - display
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Missing Data - example
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Missing Data - composition

• How do composition operators handle it? We treat
  it like IEEE NaN

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Meta-Functions

• Click through the window to send a command to
  the data underneath.

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Conclusion (1995)

• by merging Dynamic Queries with Magic Lenses, we
  keep the interactive, visual nature of queries,
  but add more functionality.
• Future work a slicker UI, user studies.

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Conclusion (2000)

• If this is so great, why doesnt everyone use it?
• Inter-app. Requires lots of plumbing, Xerox
  licensing. OS X?
• Intra-app. Requires Xerox licensing. So far SGI
  only one determined enough to do it.