From Database to Visualization

Prof AlvaradoMDST 3705 5 March 2013

Business

• Quiz 2 to be posted this evening– Covers everything between the last quiz and

last week– Database theory and practice

Review

• Last week, we explored the idea of the database as a “symbolic form” and “genre”– The Database is a mode of representation

comparable to such things a linear perspective in painting and the novel in writing

• The Database has certain representational qualities– Everything is a list (like an array)– Order does not matter– No inherent beginning or end– Endlessly reconfigurable (SELECT, JOIN, etc.)

Review

• The Database stands in contrast to narrative– Traditional narrative is sequential and fixed– Endings matter; novels have an arc.

• The Database reverses the relationship between paradigm and syntagm– Traditional works are final products of a

process that is hidden and forgotten– The products of a database are ephemeral

and contingent – the database itself is the thing

Review

• Databases have a logic that is used in the arts– Stories in which the order of events or

perspectives are mixed up. Manovich calls the ‘database logic’

– An example is the film, Man with a Movie Camera

• Databases can be more effective than books in organizing works of art and literature– E.g. The Whitman Project

Vertov's film shows the relationship between Database and Montage

Just as we saw that Linear Perspective and the Novel

go together

Data(bases) can be visualized

More than that, they lend themselves to visualization

Let’s look at a couple of examples …

A radial network graph from data scraped from Pandora, beginning with the Beatles

A force directed network graph of data scraped from Pandora, beginning with Elvis Costello

These network visualizations show the database as a genre – a way of

representing information

Compare them to a catalog of musical artists in a book (itself a kind of

database)

A database record depicted as a kind of text

The examples also show the database as a way to understand genre

What is visualization?

“a mapping between discrete data and a visual representation”

(Manovich)

or

a mapping of information in logical form to visual form

Manovich defines two types:

Information Visualization

Media Visualization

Statistics and information visualization were invented in the 18th century. This was linked to the rise of nation states and bureaucracy

William Playfair

The result of nations becoming aware of data ...

According to Manovich, the salient features of information visualization are

(1) The reduction of data items to points, lines, etc.

and

(2) the use of space (size, shape, etc.) as the primary vehicle of representation

Color is used, but as an embellishment

Here are some examples …

http://www.visionlearning.com/library/large_images/image_4108.png

William Playfair (1786) The Commercial and Political Atlas: Representing, by Means of Stained Copper-Plate Charts, the Progress of the Commerce, Revenues, Expenditure and Debts of England during the Whole of the Eighteenth Century.

http://dougmccune.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/playfair_north_america_trade2.jpg

http://www.economist.com/images/20071222/5107CR1B.jpg

http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/images/priestley.gif

Joseph Priestley's life-time graph of the lifespans of famous people. One of the first graphical time lines. Joseph Priestly, A Chart of Biography, 1765.

http://cartographia.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/minard_napoleon.png

Minard’s map

http://cartographia.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/minard-full.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Minard-carte-viande-1858.png

The difference is that information

visualizations reveal patterns in the data,

whereas info graphics use patterns to present a point or to present an

idea

Media Visualizations are not essentially reductive, and they use

color as much as space

Time Magazine covers between 1923 and 2009

Data points are the objects themselves

Color emerges as a key dimension

Sequencing -- "cultural time series"

What can you learn from this visualization?

A million manga pages

Rothko and Mondrian

Not all visualizations are information

visualizations in Manovich's sense ...

The following are “info graphics”

The Odyssey

The History of Science Fiction

Rebecca Black's "Friday"

What’s the big difference?

Information and media visualizations are generated algorithmically

Info graphics tend to be hand made creations (although they may

emulate algorithms)

The former exemplify Manovich’s principle that databases generate works – in this case, visualizations

Are information and media visualizations more truthful than

information graphics?

graphesis

graphesisInformation embodied in material form

graphesisOpposite of mathesis –Science, math as universal language

Think of the relationship between geometry and algebra

Database: Visualization :: Algebra : Geometry

Which is more real? Which depends on the other?

Can we imagine what a point is without visualizing it?

Is information separable from matter?

graphesisthe basis of mathesis

Media are always embedded in culture. Science was made possible by exact copy printing, a visual language (Ivins 1953)http://21st.century.phil-inst.hu/2002_konf/Nyiri/web_ivins.JPG

These images are both beautiful and effective

As digital scholars, our job is to learn how to read, review, and produce them

The theory of graphesis teaches us that images have an epistemology, or “cognitive style”

Paradoxes

• Computers are based on mathesis, or logico-mathematical thinking

• And visualization is based on computing• Ergo, mathesis precedes graphesis• But, mathesis rests on graphesis

– The iconography of mathematical symbols– The products of mathesis must always be

visualized with forms that have a rhetoric

http://oneparticularwave.files.wordpress.com/2006/11/escher.gif

All visualization involves transformation

Raw Data Data Models Queries Arrays Visual

Arrangements

The “final” transformation

• The visual product encodes a series of transformations from raw data to visual design

• A key element of this design is the use of space

• Space is complex—it involves the concepts of dimension, location, distance, and shape

• Each visualization uses these elements differently

What is transformation?

Review Examples

Patterns of Transformation (i)

• Image Grids (aka Image Graphs)– Purpose: Creates 2D qualitative space

• Space is uniform, Cartesian• “Points” are actually not atomic, but contain

content• Designed to show “hot spots”

– Method:• Identify X and Y in which to plot objects of type A• Create query to generate A, X and Y columns• Convert query data into 3D array $DATA[$X][$Y] =

$A• Convert array into HTML

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Patterns of Transformation (ii)

• Network Graphs– Purpose: Creates a network of relationships

• Space not uniform—distance and location of nodes require interpretation

– Method:• Identify nodes and principle of relationship (e.g.

container)• Create query to generate nodes and principle• Convert query into NODE and EDGE arrays• Convert arrays data into Cartesian Product for

each principle• Convert array into PNG, SVG, etc.

http://studio1.shanti.virginia.edu/~rca2t/dataesthetics/04-26/graph-main.php

Patterns of Transformation (iii)

• Adjacency Matrix – Purpose: Creates a 2D space

• But X and Y are “self similar”

– Method:• Identify X and Y• Create query to generate X and Y columns• Convert query data into 2D array• Convert array into HTML

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Patterns of Transformation (iv)

• Arcs and Circles– Purpose: Creates a 2D dimensions, with 1

dimension metric, the other not• Only an X axis with connections in qualitative

space

– Method:• Same as network graphs• Visualize using Protovis library

http://studio1.shanti.virginia.edu/~rca2t/dataesthetics/04-21/ex-04-pviz-arc.php

Patterns of Transformation (v)

• Hand-made– Purpose: Creates a free-form qualitative

space– Method:

• Draw!