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¹Department of Computer Systems, Faculty of Information Technology, The University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

Correspondence to: Dr Quang Vinh Nguyen, Department of Computer Systems, Faculty of Information Technology, The University of Technology, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia. Tel: +61 2 95144519; Fax: +61 2 95141807; E-mail: quvnguye@it.uts.edu.au

This paper describes a new approach, space-optimized tree, for the visualization and navigation of tree-structured relational data. This technique can be used especially for the display of very large hierarchies in a two-dimensional space. We discuss the advantages and limitations of current techniques of tree visualization. Our strategy is to optimize the drawing of trees in a geometrical plane and maximize the utilization of display space by allowing more nodes and links to be displayed at a limited screen resolution. Space-optimized tree is a connection+enclosure visualization approach that recursively positions children of a subtree into polygon areas and still uses a node-link diagram to present the entire hierarchical structure. To be able to handle the navigation of large hierarchies, we use a new hybrid viewing technique that combines two viewing methods, the modified semantic zooming and a focus+context technique. While the semantic zooming technique can enlarge a particular viewing area by filtering out the rest of tree structure from the visualization, the focus+context technique allows the user to interactively focus, view and browse the entire visual structure with a reasonable high-density display.

Information Visualization (2003) 2, 3-15. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ivs.9500031

Graph layout; tree layout; hierarchical visualization; space-optimized tree; focus+context