John Peter Lee

The next frontier for bio- and cheminformatics visualization

Life science research is increasingly reliant on computation, as affirmed by the recent mapping of the human genome and the analysis questions it poses. Our task is to make sense of these genetic blueprints to develop treatments and therapies for disease. This market is huge, as is the commitment by pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, and the investment community. The stage is set for scientific discovery and technology advances, the stakes are high, and researchers have many analysis alternatives. The question is whether visualization can be a player in this market and whether its up to the challenges. This is the question we attempted to answer as panelists at the Visualization 2001 conference. As a group of researchers and practitioners in this burgeoning field, we have noticed three broad problem-solving themes: the visual integration of analyses; high-dimensional analytic visualization; and the emergence of new visualization designs to solve problems. It is clear that advances in information visualization will be integral to bio- and cheminformatics.

Database Issues for Data Visualization: Supporting Interactive Database Explorartion

A recurrent theme from the Second Database Issues for Data Visualization workshop was the importance of interactively exploring databases using numerous tools and techniques. Database exploration is a discovery process where relevant information or knowledge is identified and extracted from data. It is related to the field of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD), and emphasizes the process of knowledge discovery: the development of hypotheses about the data, and the validation of those hypotheses. Discovery is not only possible from analytic tools, but also from graphical, textual, numeric, and tabular presentations of data. Flexibility in data processing and output presentation are fundamental requirements of any data exploration environment. A shared sentiment among workshop participants was that database exploration requires the cooperation of database management, data analysis and data visualization facilities, as shown in Figure 1. Interaction is also central to database exploration. The user must interact with data to discover information. User-data interactions must, then, be supported by an integrated exploration system. Because of the potential complexity of such a system, interactions occur at many levels between the data, system and user. These include interactions among software modules and user-data interfaces. Process management will play a larger role in the development of adequate exploration environments, because such environments will be integrations of numerous types of systems that focus on smaller aspects of the overall problem. If we are to realize any benefits from such an integration, the whole must be greater than the sum of the components.

Exploratory visualization research at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell

Abstract This paper describes research activities in the University of Massachusetts—Lowells ongoing Exvis project, a perception-driven approach to the visualization and exploration of data. We discuss the evolution of the Exvis exploratory visualization systems and provide a variety of examples of multidimensional data representations based on visual perception of line texture and color, and on auditory perception of aggregations of complex time-varying sounds. We also discuss future activities.

Data Exploration Interactions and the ExBase System

This paper describes elements of data exploration interactions and the design philosophy of the ExBase (Exploration of DataBases) system. The ExBase system integrates a database management system with data visualization and analysis, for interactive data exploration. Knowledge about the interactions between user, data, and the system will be automatically recorded by the system for subsequent analysis. This approach will help define the user and system interface requirements for future data exploration environments. Our top-down design focuses on supporting user interactions and accommodating new technologies as they appear. We believe that new avenues for data exploration will be enabled because of this coupling.

Views, Visualization and Databases

We describe a database management — data visualization integration based on the view concept. In general, views are descriptions of data transformations that enable more efficient interactions between user and data. Our intent is to use the view concept as the unifying link between the two systems, thereby enabling database interaction to be closely coupled with data visualization. We discuss the types of views used to realize the integration, and their implementation in our environment.