A brief history of data visualization

Attila Bátorfy, ELTE MMI, Budapest

Why we visualize data?

• Representation
  analysis, seeing, understanding

• Argumentation
  highlight, enlight, demonstration, proof 

Why we visualize data?

• Data visualization is a visual rhetoric form which uses mostly abstract visual signs for highlight, demonstration, enhance, convince or debunk. 

• monosemic

Why we visualize data?

Not how to see, but how to read the meaning of the visual signs - semiology/diagrammatology

Visual signs

point                                  line                                        shape                                     form

Attributes

position                               length                         direction                         angle

    shape                               size                                colour                         shade

Reading

Position              Length                Angle               Direction             Size                   Colour

Growth

Decreasement

 

Pattern

 

Outlie

 

Noize

Meaning

Process

Sign

Attributes

Meaning

Representative

Narrative

Argumentation

Style

Semiotics

Diagrammatology

In the family of images

?

In the family of images

• art history
  Gombrich, Elkins (epistemic image)
   
• visual cultural studies
  Mitchell, Boehm (pictorial turn, iconic turn)
   
• Bildwissenschaft
  Bredekamp (technical image)

In the family of images

diagrams (schematic image)

plans

pictograms

genealogies

knowledge trees
maps

scientific images (microscope)

scientific illustrations (anatomical drawings)

?DATA VISUALIZATION?

• linear, chronological history
  Funkhouser, Friendly, Rendgen
• history of forms
  Manuel Lima, Rosenberg and Grafton
• history of ideas
  Bender and Marrinan, Schmidt-Burkhardt
• Monographs
  Wainer, Berkowitz, Rendgen, Rusert

30 000 BC

950 circa

mid 14. century

mid. 17. century

1769 - Joseph Priestley

1786, 1801 - William Playfair

Minard
1844/1870

Nightingale
1856

Neuraths
1925