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An Evaluation of Space Time Cube Representation of Spatiotemporal Patterns
July/August 2009 (vol. 15 no. 4)
pp. 696-702
ASCII Text
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Per Ola Kristensson, Nils Dahlbäck, Daniel Anundi, Marius Björnstad, Hanna Gillberg, Jonas Haraldsson, Ingrid Mårtensson, Mathias Nordvall, Josefine Ståhl, "An Evaluation of Space Time Cube Representation of Spatiotemporal Patterns," IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 696-702, July/August, 2009.
 
 
BibTex
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@article{ 10.1109/TVCG.2008.194,
author = {Per Ola Kristensson and Nils Dahlbäck and Daniel Anundi and Marius Björnstad and Hanna Gillberg and Jonas Haraldsson and Ingrid Mårtensson and Mathias Nordvall and Josefine Ståhl},
title = {An Evaluation of Space Time Cube Representation of Spatiotemporal Patterns},
journal ={IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics},
volume = {15},
number = {4},
issn = {1077-2626},
year = {2009},
pages = {696-702},
doi = {http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TVCG.2008.194},
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 - An Evaluation of Space Time Cube Representation of Spatiotemporal Patterns
IS - 4
SN - 1077-2626
SP696
EP702
EPD - 696-702
A1 - Per Ola Kristensson,
A1 - Nils Dahlbäck,
A1 - Daniel Anundi,
A1 - Marius Björnstad,
A1 - Hanna Gillberg,
A1 - Jonas Haraldsson,
A1 - Ingrid Mårtensson,
A1 - Mathias Nordvall,
A1 - Josefine Ståhl,
PY - 2009
KW - Information visualization
KW - evaluation/methodology
KW - space time cube.
VL - 15
JA - IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
ER -
 
Per Ola Kristensson, University of Cambridge, Cambridge
Nils Dahlbäck, Linköping University, Linköping
Daniel Anundi, Linköping University, Linköping
Marius Björnstad, Linköping University, Linköping
Hanna Gillberg, Linköping University, Linköping
Jonas Haraldsson, Linköping University, Linköping
Ingrid Mårtensson, Linköping University, Linköping
Mathias Nordvall, Linköping University, Linköping
Josefine Ståhl, Linköping University, Linköping
Space time cube representation is an information visualization technique where spatiotemporal data points are mapped into a cube. Information visualization researchers have previously argued that space time cube representation is beneficial in revealing complex spatiotemporal patterns in a data set to users. The argument is based on the fact that both time and spatial information are displayed simultaneously to users, an effect difficult to achieve in other representations. However, to our knowledge the actual usefulness of space time cube representation in conveying complex spatiotemporal patterns to users has not been empirically validated. To fill this gap, we report on a between-subjects experiment comparing novice users' error rates and response times when answering a set of questions using either space time cube or a baseline 2D representation. For some simple questions, the error rates were lower when using the baseline representation. For complex questions where the participants needed an overall understanding of the spatiotemporal structure of the data set, the space time cube representation resulted in on average twice as fast response times with no difference in error rates compared to the baseline. These results provide an empirical foundation for the hypothesis that space time cube representation benefits users analyzing complex spatiotemporal patterns.

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Index Terms:
Information visualization, evaluation/methodology, space time cube.
Citation:
Per Ola Kristensson, Nils Dahlbäck, Daniel Anundi, Marius Björnstad, Hanna Gillberg, Jonas Haraldsson, Ingrid Mårtensson, Mathias Nordvall, Josefine Ståhl, "An Evaluation of Space Time Cube Representation of Spatiotemporal Patterns," IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 696-702, July-Aug. 2009, doi:10.1109/TVCG.2008.194
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