Concentric Set Schematization

Sets can be visualized in various ways and settings. An important

distinction between techniques is based on whether the elements

have a spatial location that is to be used for the visualization; for

example, the elements are cities on a map. Strictly adhering to such

location may severely limit the visualization and force overlay, intersections

and other forms of clutter. On the other hand, completely

ignoring the spatial dimension omits information and may hide spatial

patterns in the data. In this abstract, we present ongoing research

on a method that is in between spatial and nonspatial visualizations.

The main idea is to schematize (move) the spatial locations onto

concentric circles, to improve the visualization of the set system

while roughly maintaining spatial structure.