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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!