Tools for opportunistic information visualization: Visual analysis with non-traditional data sources

Information Visualization (InfoVis) often supports the analysis of structured data that is organized in documents with specific formats such as databases, Excel tables, or comma-separated files. Informal analyses that take place without anticipation and away from the desktop, however, might involve the use of data contained in digital artifacts that lack this structure (e.g., photographs, bitmaps, web pages). Such artifacts cannot provide immediate input for most existing visualization systems, as the data they contain does not exist as a set of variables with associated values. This research seeks to explore new opportunities in the design and implementation spaces of InfoVis authoring tools to support visualization in opportunistic scenarios. This document briefly defines the Opportunistic Visualization (OpportuVis) domain and describes iVoLVER, a research prototype that supports the construction of interactive visuals from non-traditional data sources. Future stages of this endeavor include the evaluation of iVoLVER from two perspectives: its analytical support and its usability features.