An architecture for retaining and analyzing visual explorations of databases

A software architecture is presented to integrate a database management system with data visualization. One of its primary objectives, the retention of user-data interactions, is detailed. By storing all queries over the data along with high-level descriptions of the query results and the associated visualization, the processes by which a database is explored can be analyzed. This approach can lead to important contributions in the development of user models as "data explorers", metadata models for scientific databases, intelligent assistants and data exploration services. We describe the underlying elements of this approach, specifically the visual database exploration model and the metadata objects that support the model.