Magic Lenses for Interactive Database Visualization Ken Fishkin SoftBook Press, Inc.
Feb 08, 2016
Magic Lenses for Interactive Database Visualization
Ken Fishkin
SoftBook Press, Inc.
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 2
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 3
Dynamic Queries (example 1) One
selector per attribute
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 4
Dynamic Queries (example 2)
Selectors filter the display
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 5
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 6
Hybrid Techniques
language for ‘leaves’ of the query, visual interface for compound queries Still not all queries supported
ContentContent
DateDate
ContentContent
ContainsContains
is beforeis before
containscontains
Document ManagementDocument Management
05/01/9405/01/94
Visual Recall OSVisual Recall OS
AndAnd OrOr
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 7
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 8
Merging Lenses into Queries
Put one attribute selector on a lens.
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 9
#1 - local filters
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 10
#2 - repeated attributes
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 11
#3 - arbitrary number of attrs.
Just stack ‘em up.
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 12
Consistent UI
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 13
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 14
And/or in action
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 15
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 16
Grouping
Introduce compound (grouped) lenses Allows parenthesizing allows macros Conjunction + Negation + Grouping ==>
support for arbitrary Boolean queries
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 17
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 18
Fuzzy Selectors
Selectors need not be ‘pass/fail’.
FalseFalse
TrueTrue
FalseFalse
TrueTrue
00
11
00
11
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 19
Selectors over [0..1]
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 20
Numerical Operators
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 21
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 22
Fuzzy example
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 23
Missing Data - display
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 24
Missing Data - example
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 25
Missing Data - composition
How do composition operators handle it? We treat it like IEEE NaN
Magic Lenses - Ken Fishkin - Nov. 2000 26
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 27
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.