GoTree: A Grammar of Tree Visualizations

Abstract

We present GoTree, a declarative grammar allowing users to instantiate tree visualizations by specifying three aspects: visual elements, layout, and coordinate system. Within the set of all possible tree visualization techniques, we identify a subset of techniques that are both "unit-decomposable" and "axis-decomposable" (terms we define). For tree visualizations within this subset, GoTree gives the user flexible and fine-grained control over the parameters of the techniques, supporting both explicit and implicit tree visualizations. We developed Tree Illustrator, an interactive authoring tool based on GoTree grammar. Tree Illustrator allows users to create a considerable number of tree visualizations, including not only existing techniques but also undiscovered and hybrid visualizations. We demonstrate the expressiveness and generative power of GoTree with a gallery of examples and conduct a qualitative study to validate the usability of Tree Illustrator.

Keywords
"Tree visualization
Declarative grammar
Authoring tool
Hierarchical data visualization"
Authors
Guozheng Li
Peking University, Beijing, China
Min Tian
Peking University, Beijing, China
Qinmei Xu
Peking University, Beijing, China
Michael J. McGuffin
École de Technologie Supérieure, Montreal, Canada
Xiaoru Yuan
Peking University, Beijing, China
DOI

10.1145/3313831.3376297

Paper URL

https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376297

Conference: CHI 2020

The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (https://chi2020.acm.org/)

Session: Visualizing trees, networks & paths

Paper session
316A MAUI
5 items in this session
2020-04-30 11:00:00
2020-04-30 12:15:00
Japanese summary
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