Three dimensional visualization of the World Wide Web (original) (raw)
Visualizing the structure of the World Wide Web in 3D hyperbolic space
Proceedings of the first symposium on Virtual reality modeling language - VRML '95, 1995
We visualize the structure of sections of the World Wide Web by constructing graphical representations in 3D hyperbolic space. The felicitous property that hyperbolic space has "more room" than Euclidean space allows more information to be seen amid less clutter, and motion by hyperbolic isometries provides for mathematically elegant navigation. The 3D graphical representations, available in the WebOOGL or VRML file formats, contain link anchors which point to the original pages on the Web itself. We use the Geomview/WebOOGL 3D Web browser as an interface between the 3D representation and the actual documents on the Web. The Web is just one example of a hierarchical tree structure with links "back up the tree" i.e. a directed graph which contains cycles. Our information visualization techniques are appropriate for other types of directed graphs with cycles, such as filesystems with symbolic links.
SaTellite: a visualization and navigation tool for hypermedia
ACM SIGOIS Bulletin, 1990
SaTellite is a visualization and navigation tool for a hypermedia system. It is based on the concept of affinity between objects; that is, a relationship with an associated intensity. The user is presented with a two dimensional map that provides a view of the hypermedia environment where objects lying close together have a greater affinity than those lying further apart. The system provides different views by allowing modification of the underlying measure of affinity. The system is also able to track dynamically the evolution of the objects' relationships. Based on the affinity concept, we develop new dynamic presentation techniques that do not depend on the explicit display of links between the nodes of the graph. The dynamic layout algorithm that we present at the end of the paper is based on these techniques and it allows for the display of rapidly changing relationships between objects.
Visualising the web: why we should abandon graphs and trees
2001
Abstract The World Wide Web affects an increasing number of people's lives. The manner in which these people interact with web sites is heavily influenced by the sites' design and structure. However, the structures of different web sites vary greatly, as they are determined by the whim of the site designer, and not by strict rules. Without being able to rely on knowledge and experience of previous sites visited, perceiving the structure of the current site being viewed is a complex task.
ACM SIGMIS Database: the DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems, 2007
The World Wide Web is a dominant global communication medium and knowledge repository. It is used by a great number of people with a variety of computer skills hence its usability is critical. As with many large information collections, the challenge with web usability is understanding the structure of a collection of information objects (web pages) to find relevant ones for satisfying a specific information need. Web sites are organized in a hyperlinked structure that somewhat addresses this challenge. However, this "connectedness" also causes the now well-known "lost in cyberspace" phenomenon where one may get confused within the complex organization of a web site. Meanwhile, information exploration on the web is not limited to browsing a web site. The problem of finding relevant information applies to a collection of pages that come from various web sites as in the case of the results of a "less than perfectly constructed" search query. Information v...
Visualizing the World-Wide Web with the Navigational View Builder
Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, 1995
Overview diagrams are one of the best tools for orientation and navigation in hypermedia systems. However, constructing effective ovemiew diagrams is a challenging task. This paper describes the Navigational View Builder, a tool which allows the user to inte:ractively creafe useful visualizations of the information space. It uses four strategies to form effective views. These are binding, clustering, filtering and hierarchization. These strategies use a combination of structural and content analysis of the underlying space for forming the visualizations. This paper discusses these strategies and shows how they can be applied for forming visualizations for the WorldWide Web.
Visualization of Large Nested Graphs in 3D: Navigation and Interaction
Journal of Visual Languages & Computing, 1998
Most systems for visualizing large information structures use 2D graphics to view networks of nodes and arcs that represent data. To understand large structures it is often necessary to show both small-scale and large-scale structure. This has been called the problem of focus and context. Distortion, rapid zooming, elision, and multiple windows are all techniques that have been developed to provide both focus and context within single representations. We review these techniques and argue that 3D visualization has a number of advantages. A system called NestedVision3D (NV3D) will be presented that has been developed to investigate the use of 3D visualization for understanding the structure of large computer programs. NV3D is a system for visualizing large nested graphs using interactive 3D graphics. It has been tested with graphs containing more than 35,000 nodes and 100,000 relationships. We describe NV3D and its design philosophy. Basic navigation is facilitated by a set of 3D widgets, rapid scaling, and interactive elision. More experimental features include animations called snakes, which are used to trace dynamic software behavior.
An initial examination of ease of use for 2D and 3D information visualizations of web content
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2000
We present a discussion and initial empirical investigation of user interface designs for a set of three Web browsers. The target end user population we identified were experienced software engineers who maintained large web sites or portals. The user study demonstrated the strengths and weaknesses of two conventional 2D browsers for this target user, as well as that of XML3D, a novel browser that integrates an interactive 3D hyperbolic graph view with a more traditional 2D list view of the data. A standard collapse/expand tree browser and a Web-based hierarchical categorization similar to Yahoo!, were competitively evaluated against XML3D. No reliable difference between the two 2D browsers was observed. However, the results showed clear differences between XML3D and the 2D user interfaces combined. With XML3D, participants performed search tasks within existing categories reliably faster with no decline in the quality of their responses. It was informally observed that integrating the ability to view the overall structure of the information space with the ability to easily assess local and global relationships was key to successful search performance. XML3D was the only tool of the three that efficiently showed the overall structure within one visualization. The XML3D browser accomplished this by combining a 3D graph layout view as well as an accompanying 2D list view. Users did opt to use the 2D user interface components of XML3D during new category search tasks, and the XML3D performance advantage was no longer obtained in those conditions. In addition, there were no reliable differences in overall user satisfaction across the three user interface designs. Since we observed subjects using the XML3D features differently depending on the kind of search task, future studies should explore optimal ways of integrating the use of novel focus + context visualizations and 2D lists for effective information retrieval. The contribution of this paper is that it includes empirical data to demonstrate where novel focus + context views might benefit experienced users over and above more conventional user interface techniques, in addition to where design improvements are warranted. 3 Risden et al. IJHCS 5/18/00
Visualizing Web Search Results in 3D
IEEE Computer, 2004
The exponential growth in Web sites is making it increasingly difficult to extract useful information on the Internet using existing search engines. Despite a wide range of sophisticated indexing and data retrieval features, search engines often deliver satisfactory results only when users know precisely what they are looking for. Traditional textual interfaces present results as a list of links to Web pages. Because most users are unwilling to explore an extensive list, search engines arbitrarily reduce the number of links returned, aiming also to provide quick response times. Moreover, their proprietary ranking algorithms often do not reflect individual user preferences. Those who need comprehensive general information about a topic or have vague initial requirements instead want a holistic presentation of data related to their queries. To address this need, we have developed Periscope, a 3D search result visualization system that displays all the Web pages found in a synthetic, yet comprehensible format.
Network Visualization by Meaningful Substrates
2006
ABSTRACT Networks have remained a challenge for information visualization designers because of the complex issues of node and link layout coupled with the rich set of tasks that users present. This paper offers a five-layer hierarchy of network visualization situations with associated tasks: from simple node and link situations to more elaborate situations involving node labels, directed links, node attributes, and link attributes. Then, it offers a strategy based on tying node placement to node attributes within nonoverlapping regions.
Skeletal Images as Visual Cues in Graph Visualization
Eurographics, 1999
The problem of graph layout and drawing is fundamental to many aproaches to the visualization of relational information structures. As the data set grows, the visualization problem is compounded by the need to reconcile the user's need for orientation cues with the danger of information overload. Put simply: How can we limit the number of visual elements on the screen so as not to overwhelm the user yet retain enough information that the user is able to navigate and explore the data set confidently? How can we provide orientational cues so that a user can understand the location of the current viewpoint in a large data set? These are problems inherent not only to graph drawing but information visualization in general. We propose a method which extracts the significant features of a directed acyclic graph as the basis for navigation 1 .