Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 1743–1750Cite as

Iconic Displays

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:

  • 154 Accesses

Synonyms

Glyphs; Icon; Iconographics

Definition

Iconic displays are visualizations that generalize traditional displays (especially scatterplots) where each record, instead of being drawn as a point, is represented by a more general primitive called an icon or glyph. The goals are to harness human perception, especially texture, and to display many more parameters. Whereas a pixel is driven by three data values from some color model (typically red, green, and blue) an icon is a geometric object driven by potentially many values, with some icons displaying over 30. Some icons are drawn using lines, some using colored areas, some move and vibrate, and some even have sound output. Some iconic displays drop the Cartesian base of the underlying display and use alternative layout techniques. However, in all of these, the key defining factor is the representation of a record in a visualization by a very general, most often geometric, primitive, with the goal of producing more...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   4,499.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   6,499.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Recommended Reading

  1. Bergeron RD, Grinstein GG. A reference model for scientific visualization. In: Proceedings of the European Computer Graphics Conference and Exhibition; 1989. p. 393–9.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bertin J. Semiology of graphics. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press (Original work published in 1967); 1983.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Chambers JM, Cleveland WS, Kleiner B, Tukey PA. Graphical methods for data analysis. Belmont: Wadsworth; 1983.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Chernoff H. The use of faces to represent points in k-dimensional space graphically. J Am Stat Assoc. 1973;68(342):361–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Flury B, Riedwyl H. Graphical representation of multivariate data by means of asymmetrical faces. J Am Stat Assoc. 1981;76(376):757–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Gibson JJ. The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin; 1979.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Grinstein G, Pickett R, Williams MG. EXVIS: an exploratory visualization environment. In: Proceedings of the Graphics Interface; 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Healey CG, Booth KS, Enns JT. Visualizing real-time multivariate data using preattentive processing. ACM Trans Model Comput Simul. 1995;5(3):190–221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Julesz B. Textons, the elements of texture perception, and their interactions. Nature. 1981;290(5802):91–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Kindlmann G, Weinstein D, Lee A, Toga A, Thompson P. Visualization of anatomic covariance tensor fields. In: Proceedings of the 26th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society; 2004. p. 1842–5.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Levkowitz H. Color icons: merging color and texture perception for integrated visualization of multiple parameters. In: Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Visualization; 1991. p. 164–70.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Perlman J. Visualizing network security events using compound glyphs from a service-oriented perspective. 2007. Available at: http://www.csee.umbc.edu/gavl/theses/jpearlman.pdf.

  13. Pickett RM, Grinstein GG. Iconographic displays for visualizing multidimensional data. In: Proceedings of the 1988 IEEE Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics; 1988. p. 514–8.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Pickett RM, Grinstein G, Levkowitz H, Smith S. Harnessing preattentive perceptual processes in visualization. In: Perceptual issues in visualization. New York: Springer; 1995. p. 33–45.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  15. Pinkney D. Intelligent Iconic Visualization. Ph.D thesis, University of Massachusetts, Lowell. 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Smith S, Bergeron R, Grinstein G. Stereophonic and surface sound generation for exploratory data analysis. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems; 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Ward M. A taxonomy of glyph placement strategies for multidimensional data visualization. Inf. Vis. 2002;1(3/4):194–210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Wittenbrink C, Pang A, Lodha S. Glyphs for visualizing uncertainty in vector fields. IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph. 1996;2(3):266–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Yang F, Goodell H, Pickett R, Bobrow R, Baumann A, Gee A, Grinstein GG. Data exploration combining kinetic and static visualization displays. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Coordinated & Multiple Views in Exploratory Visualization; 2006. p. 21–30.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Zhang X, Pazner M. The icon imagemap technique for multivariate geospatial data visualization: approach and software. Cartogr Geogr Inf Sci. 2004;31(1):29–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA, USA

    Georges Grinstein & Damon Andrew Berry

Authors
  1. Georges Grinstein
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Damon Andrew Berry
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Georges Grinstein .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. Computer Science Department, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

    Daniel A. Keim

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Grinstein, G., Berry, D.A. (2018). Iconic Displays. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_1130

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation