Magic Lenses for Interactive Database Visualization

Magic Lenses for Interactive Database Visualization Ken Fishkin SoftBook Press, Inc.

Traditional Database Queries • Use a Special Language • select title from movies where lead_actor=‘Connery, Sean’ and (year < 1960 or year > 1975) • Batch, non-visual Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Dynamic Queries (example 1) • One selector per attribute Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Dynamic Queries (example 2) • Selectors filter the display Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Dynamic Queries (limitations) • designed for a small number of attributes • only global filters • can’t screen on an attribute more than once • no disjunctions • limited query set Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Hybrid Techniques • language for ‘leaves’ of the query, • visual interface for compound queries • Still not all queries supported Content Date Content Contains is before contains Document Management 05/01/94 Visual Recall OS And Or Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Magic Lenses • Movable local filters, which transform the data underneath them in some way, be it visual (magnifying lens), semantic (misspelled words), or other Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Merging Lenses into Queries • Put one attribute selector on a lens. Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

#1 - local filters Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

#2 - repeated attributes Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

#3 - arbitrary number of attrs. • Just stack ‘em up. Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Consistent UI Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Query Power • 2.5D order of windows implies a composition/evaluation order • Put an AND/OR toggle on the lens to indicate how it should compose: • A AND B --> <A,AND> above <B> • A OR B --> <A,OR> above <B> Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

And/or in action Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Query Power(2) • NOT gets its own lens • A AND NOT (B OR C) • <A,AND> • <NOT> • <B,OR> • <C> Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Grouping • Introduce compound (grouped) lenses • Allows parenthesizing • allows macros • Conjunction + Negation + Grouping ==> support for arbitrary Boolean queries Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Extensions • No need to have just ‘AND’ and ‘OR’ - could have any/all of the 16 possible combinations. • Could just have a ‘NAND’ mode, but that would be non-intuitive. And/Or/Not are most common. Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Fuzzy Selectors • Selectors need not be ‘pass/fail’. True 1 False 0 1 True False 0 Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Selectors over [0..1] Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Numerical Operators Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Fuzzy Composition • Selectors on [0..1] implies composition on [0..1] • Replace AND by MIN, OR by MAX, NOT by complement • Presently, have implemented arithmetic (“DIFF”), statistical (“SQRT”), and fuzzy (“VERY”) • Many others possible Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Fuzzy example Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Missing Data - display Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Missing Data - example Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Missing Data - composition • How do composition operators handle it? We treat it like IEEE NaN Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Conclusion (1995) • by merging Dynamic Queries with Magic Lenses, we keep the interactive, visual nature of queries, but add more functionality. • Future work: a slicker UI, user studies. Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Conclusion (2000) • If this is so great, why doesn’t everyone use it? • Inter-app. Requires lots of “plumbing”, Xerox licensing. OS X? • Intra-app. Requires Xerox licensing. So far SGI only one determined enough to do it. Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000

Magic Lenses for Interactive Database Visualization