End-User Visualization and Manipulation of Distributed Aggregate Data
- T. Paul McCartney,
Kenneth J. Goldman
Aggregate visualization and manipulation enables the viewing and
interaction of dynamically changing data sets in a graphically
meaningful way. However, off-the-shelf applications typically provide
only limited ways to view static aggregates and generally do not
support manipulation of aggregate data through the resulting
visualization. To be fully dynamic, an aggregate visualization should
be customizable to suit the individual's needs and should allow
end-users to modify the data through direct manipulation. This paper
describes a software system that empowers end-users to create
interactive aggregate visualizations through a visual language
interface. Included are mechanisms for specifying how aggregate data
is processed from multiple sources of a distributed application,
providing functionality similar to project, select, join, and cross
product of relational databases. This approach gives end-users the
power to create customized, interactive visualizations of dynamically
changing aggregate data without the need for textual programming.
KEYWORDS: aggregate data, constraints, direct manipulation,
distributed computing, matching, multi-way constraints, user interface
management system, visualization
Available as
postscript (.ps) or
compressed postscript (.ps.gz).
Washington University Department of Computer Science WUCS-97-48,
December 1997.
Submitted to Journal of Visual Languages and Computing.
Prepared by
T. Paul McCartney
(paul@cs.wustl.edu)
Washington University Department of Computer Science