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Stacked Graphs – Geometry & Aesthetics
November/December 2008 (vol. 14 no. 6)
pp. 1245-1252
ASCII Text
x 
 
Lee Byron, Martin Wattenberg, "Stacked Graphs – Geometry & Aesthetics," IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 1245-1252, November/December, 2008.
 
 
BibTex
x
 
@article{ 10.1109/TVCG.2008.166,
author = {Lee Byron and Martin Wattenberg},
title = {Stacked Graphs – Geometry & Aesthetics},
journal ={IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics},
volume = {14},
number = {6},
issn = {1077-2626},
year = {2008},
pages = {1245-1252},
doi = {http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TVCG.2008.166},
publisher = {IEEE Computer Society},
address = {Los Alamitos, CA, USA},
}
 
 
RefWorks Procite/RefMan/Endnote
x 
 
TY - JOUR
JO - IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
TI - Stacked Graphs – Geometry & Aesthetics
IS - 6
SN - 1077-2626
SP1245
EP1252
EPD - 1245-1252
A1 - Lee Byron,
A1 - Martin Wattenberg,
PY - 2008
KW - Index Terms—Streamgraph
KW - ThemeRiver
KW - listening history
KW - last.fm
KW - aesthetics
KW - communication-minded visualization
KW - time series
VL - 14
JA - IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
ER -
 
Lee Byron, The New York Times
Martin Wattenberg, Visual Communication Lab at IBM
In February 2008, the New York Times published an unusual chart of box office revenues for 7500 movies over 21 years. The chart was based on a similar visualization, developed by the first author, that displayed trends in music listening. This paper describes the design decisions and algorithms behind these graphics, and discusses the reaction on the Web. We suggest that this type of complex layered graph is effective for displaying large data sets to a mass audience. We provide a mathematical analysis of how this layered graph relates to traditional stacked graphs and to techniques such as ThemeRiver, showing how each method is optimizing a different “energy function”. Finally, we discuss techniques for coloring and ordering the layers of such graphs. Throughout the paper, we emphasize the interplay between considerations of aesthetics and legibility.

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Index Terms:
Index Terms—Streamgraph, ThemeRiver, listening history, last.fm, aesthetics, communication-minded visualization, time series
Citation:
Lee Byron, Martin Wattenberg, "Stacked Graphs – Geometry & Aesthetics," IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 1245-1252, Nov.-Dec. 2008, doi:10.1109/TVCG.2008.166
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