Information drill-down using Web tools

Reviews the information visualization and interaction techniques needed to add another dimension to surfing the World Wide Web. Information visualization can be used to explore relationships by "drilling down" and retrieving more data within a region of interest in the visualized data, combining data mining, direct manipulation and data visualization with 3D Web tools. It is now possible to create desktop visualization applications that let users interact with databases with larger datasets over the network using both 2D and 3D interaction metaphors. The VRML standard allows users to view and navigate through 3D information data worlds and hyperlink to new worlds. Information drilling based on HTML's image map, VRML's anchor node and multiple predefined viewpoints is explained and demonstrated. The image map in 2D and 3D graphics objects (glyphs, etc.) represents the visual user interface to the information stored in the database. Over the next couple of years, we shall see 3D visualization evolve in giant steps into interactive data drilling on the Web, providing visualization technology closely integrated with the data warehouse and multidimensional abstract and geospatial data models.