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Information Visualization technics has been widely used in exploring complex data space. In the area of network visualization, the extreme complexity and professional requirements of IT engineers make it hard to design visualization strategies facilitating their daily works. This paper introduces an interactive visualization tool kit for managing network systems. It starts with the research of different visualization technics and existing visualization systems, follows with the concept development process, including user research and the evolution of mockups. A final prototype is proposed, evaluated by discussion with users.

Nowadays by increasing importance of information in all sectors, illustrating data in a communicative format helps decision makers to understand and analyze effectively large amount of information in a short time. Information visualization, as a way of presenting different data types in a more understandable form, is growing increasingly in various areas. This thesis aims to investigate how information visualization could be used to increase readability and usability of transportation simulation data. Most of the previous studies in this area have focused on visualization of transportation infrastructures such as roads, bridges, etc.; while the main focus of this thesis is visualizing the outputs of transportation simulation systems. In order to study the role of information visualization in the transportation systems, we have investigated the visualization applications in a real implemented agent-based transportation simulator called TAPAS as case. In our case study, the visualization related requirements of users were analyzed, and the visualization tool was designed and developed based on the identified requirements.

Geospatial visualizations are becoming a larger part of society. From using maps to go from one location to another to using battlefield visualizations to help the military, geospatial visualizations are becoming a larger part of people's lives. At the same time, large displays are becoming more prominent in people's lives. From large fifty-monitor tiled displays to dual monitor desktop systems people are using larger displays more often in their daily lives. This dissertation summarizes our work with large displays and geospatial visualizations. We show dramatic increases in performance of more than ten times performance improvement when using larger displays that offer a greater number of pixels. We show performance improvements for a range of tasks from simple navigation to complex pattern finding tasks. This dissertation contributes to the fields of human-computer interaction and information visualization in that it shows performance improvements as analytical force multipliers and explains why such performance exists. It explains how virtual navigation (mouse and keyboard input) correlates to physical navigation (body movement) to explain performance improvements. In addition, this dissertation explains how semantic zooming, space scale, task scale, and task type all are variables that influence human behavior in both navigation and performance. This dissertation addresses primarily geospatial information visualizations, but extends to other generic spatially oriented visualizations. The impacts of large displays for both geospatial information visualizations and generic spatially oriented visualizations are explained. / Ph. D.

Graphical representation for construction control information--processes such as scheduling, budgeting and RFIs--follows no formalized method. Many graphics neglect relevant information necessary to highlight trends in or relationships between processes. The principles of data graphics offer visual capabilities beyond those currently employed by the construction industry to display appropriate information in a manner that enhances comprehension of control processes. This paper describes a method that incorporates four tasks; those of structuring and filtering data, editing for density and communicating efficiently; as necessary to creating effective data graphics. In addition to an evaluation technique, these tasks are outlined in a coherent framework. Several construction control processes are then described with respect to these four tasks. Focused application of the framework to the budgeting process produces four graphics that are subsequently evaluated by industry professionals. Conclusions detailed at the end of this document draw together lessons learned from the process of creating data graphics as well as from quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the visual cost report. / Master of Science

The effects of immersion with respect to information visualization have rarely been explored. In this thesis, we describe a methodology, two information visualization applications that were developed using the CAVE, and three user studies in order to explore, examine and attempt to quantify the effects of immersion. We focus on three major components of immersion: field of regard (FOR), head-based rendering (HBR), and stereoscopic viewing. We hypothesize that a high degree of FOR will result in increased task performance and user satisfaction when visualizing data represented by scatter and surface plots. We also hypothesize that HBR and stereoscopic viewing will result in increased task performance, but the effects of these components would be greater in the scatter plots than surface plots. We have conducted three user studies with the information visualization applications developed for this research. In the first study, an exploratory pilot study, we observed a trend in favor of using high FOR and HBR. In the second exploratory pilot study, we observed a slight trend in favor of high FOR. In the third study, thirty-two subjects performed tasks using both the scatter plots and surface plots with eight test conditions. We observed trends in favor of high levels of FOR, HBR and stereoscopic viewing in scatter plots, a slight trend in favor of HBR for surface plots, and a significant interaction effect between FOR and HBR in scatter plots for a particular task. / Master of Science

Archeological research embracing complex Information Technology techniques can result in vast quantities of heterogeneous information from different sites in different formats. ETANA-DL is an Archeological Digital Library (DL), providing services suited for the archeological domain. With a growing collection of records in the DL, it is a challenge to present them in an organized and meaningful way. We have designed a new visual browsing interface called ETANA-CMV that aims to provide users a richer and more insightful browsing experience. ETANA-CMV allows users to navigate through the records in ETANA-DL that are multidimensional, hierarchical, and categorical in nature. ETANA-CMV was designed to be scalable, flexible, and easy to learn. This interface employs a data cube based browsing index to counter performance issues that usually limit the interactivity of visual browsing interfaces to DLs. The interface has been integrated with the existing Browse Interface and the search service in ETANA-DL. Formative evaluation of the new visual interface led to several improvements in the interface. It appears that users were able to detect trends in the DL collections more accurately using visualization based strategies than with the existing textual browse interface. / Master of Science

Dynamic Behavior Visualizer (DBV) is a visual analytics environment to visualize the spatial and temporal movements and behavioral changes of an individual or a group, e.g. family within a realistic urban environment. DBV is specifically designed to visualize the adaptive behavioral changes, as they pertain to the interactions with multiple inter-dependent infrastructures, in the aftermath of a large crisis, e.g. hurricane or the detonation of an improvised nuclear device. DBV is web-enabled and thus is easily accessible to any user with access to a web browser. A novel aspect of the system is its scale and fidelity. The goal of DBV is to synthesize information and derive insight from it; detect the expected and discover the unexpected; provide timely and easily understandable assessment and the ability to piece together all this information. / Master of Science

Information visualization is applied in many fields to gain faster insights with lighter user cognitive loads in analyzing large sets of data. As more products are being introduced each year, how can one select the most effective tool or representation form for the task? There are a number of information visualization evaluation methods currently available. However, these evaluation methods are often limited by the appropriateness of the tool for a given domain since they are not evaluating according to tools' intended use. Current methods conduct evaluations in a laboratory environment with "benchmark" tasks and often with field data sets not aligned with the intended use of the tools. The absence of realistic data sets and routine tests reduces the effectiveness of the evaluation in terms of the appropriateness of the tool for a given domain. Intended use evaluation approach captures the key activities that will use the visual technology to calibrate the evaluation criteria toward these first-order needs. This research thesis presents the results from an investigation into an intended use evaluation approach and its effectiveness of measuring domain specific information visualization tools. In investigating the evaluation approach, criteria for the intelligence analysis community have been developed for demonstration purposes. While the observations from this research are compelling for the intelligence community, the principles of the evaluation approach should apply to a wider range of visualization technologies. All the design rationale and processes were captured in this thesis. This thesis presents a design process of developing criteria and measuring five intelligence analysis visual analytic tools. The study suggests that in selecting and/or evaluating visual analytic tools, a little up front effort to analyze key activities regarding the domain field will be beneficial. Such analysis can substantially reduce evaluation time and necessary effort throughout a longer period of time. / Master of Science

An individual s decision to place a close family member in a nursing home is both difficult and crucial. To assist consumers with such a decision, several initiatives have led to the creation of public websites designed to communicate quality indicators for nursing homes. However, a majority of consumers fail to fully utilize this information for various reasons, such as the multidimensionality, complexity, and uncertainty of the information. Some of the difficulties may be alleviated by information visualization (InfoVis) techniques. However, several unsuccessful attempts in applying InfoVis to decision making suggest that a thorough understanding of the user s perspective is necessary. Accordingly, the author has developed an InfoVis tool for the decision domain of choice of a nursing home. First, a framework of overarching InfoVis and decision theories, called the visualized decision making (VDM) framework, has been developed and contextualized within the selection of a nursing home. Second, a decision-support tool using several InfoVis techniques such as the weighting slider bar and the distribution view have been designed for application within the framework, and the designed tool, called VDM, was implemented. Third, VDM was empirically tested through a web-based experiment and follow-up interviews. The results of this study showed that individuals faced with the decision of selecting a nursing home could make fairly high quality decisions when they used VDM. Though the effects of proposed InfoVis techniques were not evident, this study provided the theoretical framework and empirical results which may help other designers of InfoVis techniques because this work addresses several issues consumers face when choosing a nursing home that can be generalized to other decision making contexts.