Protovis: A Graphical Toolkit for Visualization Export

@article{citeulike:5998164, abstract = {Despite myriad tools for visualizing data, there remains a gap between the notational efficiency of high-level visualization systems and the expressiveness and accessibility of low-level graphical systems. Powerful visualization systems may be inflexible or impose abstractions foreign to visual thinking, while graphical systems such as rendering APIs and vector-based drawing programs are tedious for complex work. We argue that an easy-to-use graphical system tailored for visualization is needed. In response, we contribute Protovis, an extensible toolkit for constructing visualizations by composing simple graphical primitives. In Protovis, designers specify visualizations as a hierarchy of marks with visual properties defined as functions of data. This representation achieves a level of expressiveness comparable to low-level graphics systems, while improving efficiency--the effort required to specify a visualization--and accessibility--the effort required to learn and modify the representation. We substantiate this claim through a diverse collection of examples and comparative analysis with popular visualization tools.}, author = {Bostock, Michael and Heer, Jeffrey}, citeulike-article-id = {5998164}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2009.174}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5290720}, day = {23}, doi = {10.1109/TVCG.2009.174}, journal = {Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on}, keywords = {grapical, toolkit, visualization}, month = {October}, number = {6}, pages = {1121--1128}, posted-at = {2009-10-23 16:50:49}, priority = {2}, title = {Protovis: A Graphical Toolkit for Visualization}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2009.174}, volume = {15}, year = {2009} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:5998164 L3 - citeulike-article-id:5998164 N2 - Despite myriad tools for visualizing data, there remains a gap between the notational efficiency of high-level visualization systems and the expressiveness and accessibility of low-level graphical systems. Powerful visualization systems may be inflexible or impose abstractions foreign to visual thinking, while graphical systems such as rendering APIs and vector-based drawing programs are tedious for complex work. We argue that an easy-to-use graphical system tailored for visualization is needed. In response, we contribute Protovis, an extensible toolkit for constructing visualizations by composing simple graphical primitives. In Protovis, designers specify visualizations as a hierarchy of marks with visual properties defined as functions of data. This representation achieves a level of expressiveness comparable to low-level graphics systems, while improving efficiency--the effort required to specify a visualization--and accessibility--the effort required to learn and modify the representation. We substantiate this claim through a diverse collection of examples and comparative analysis with popular visualization tools. IS - 6 JF - Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on EP - 1128 TI - Protovis: A Graphical Toolkit for Visualization VL - 15 SP - 1121 KW - grapical KW - toolkit KW - visualization AU - Bostock, Michael AU - Heer, Jeffrey PY - 2009/10/23/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2009.174 ER -