The information mural: a technique for displaying and navigating large information spaces

Visualizations which depict entire information spaces provide context for navigation and browsing tasks; however, the limited size of the display screen makes creating effective global views difficult. We have developed a technique for displaying and navigating large information spaces. The key concept is the use of an information mural, a two-dimensional reduced representation of an entire information space that fits completely within a display window or screen. Information murals use grayscale shading and color along with anti-aliasing techniques to create a miniature version of the entire data set. By incorporating navigational capabilities, information murals become a tool that can be used as a global view along with more detailed informational displays. Information murals are utilized in our software visualization research to help depict the execution of object-oriented programs, and can also be used in more general information visualization applications.