Abstract Rendering Examples

The four function roles of abstract rendering (AR) are combined into recipes to do data analysis. Here are some common AR recipes.

High Definition Heatmap

Heatmaps convert discrete events in a 2D space into a color-based representation of the distribution of that event. For example, population is a distribution of events in a geographic region (i.e., ‘someone resides here’ is an event and physical space is the 2D space). A heatmap of population shows the distribution of people. Instead of trying to show individual people as dots, it shows the number of people in each sub-region via colors.

Using naive alpha composition, individual pixels quickly saturate and additional values no longer contribute additional color. This is a silent failure of the system, essentially mis-representing all values over a threshold as equal. Surprisingly, that threshold is often very low. At 90% transparent, standard alpha composition saturates at just 25 items. Even at the minimum opacity (just above truly transparent), only it is common to only get 256 items before saturation occurs.

The abstract rendering recipe for doing HD

Perceptual Correction

Linear color scales are easy to describe, but not perceptually accurate. In a single-color heatmap, the color scale can adjusted to more directly reflect perceptual effects by taking the cube-root of the aggregate values.

High Definition Alpha

Extending the idea of heatmaps to multiple event types leads to overlapping distributions of different types of events. These different event types are often represented as different colors. Composing each color component separately is a straightforward change to the HD heatmap recipe. (Perceptual correction in a multi-color environment is not at all straightforward, conceptually nor computationally.)

ISO Contours

Taking value distributions in another direction are ISO contours. ISO contours identify regions that all have at least a given value in them, essentially identifying dividing lines between regions.