Generating a visualization to show mining results produced from selected data items and attribute(s) in a selected focus area and other portions of a data set

• US 20090033664A1
• Filed: 07/31/2007
• Published: 02/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Micro Focus LLC (Open Text Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Morent, Dominik, Dayal, Umeshwar, Hao, Ming C., Keim, Daniel A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,022,952 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/440
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/206 Drawing of charts or graphs

Abstract

To visualize and analyze data, selection of at least one focus area in a visualization of a data set is received. Based on characteristics of the selected at least one focus area, using at least one analytic technique to mine relationships between data items and at least one attribute in the selected at least one focus area and data items and at least one attribute in remaining portions of the data set. At least one visual representation is generated to show mining results produced from selected data items and one or more attributes in the selected at least one focus area and the remaining portions of the data set, where the generated visual representation is composed to have an order and layout to represent the mined results.

Claims

1. A method executed by a computer of visually analyzing data, comprising:

receiving selection of at least one focus area in a visualization of a data set;

based on characteristics of the selected at least one focus area, using at least one analytic technique to mine relationships between data items and at least one attribute in the selected at least one focus area and data items and at least one attribute in remaining portions of the data set; and

generating at least one visual representation to show mining results produced from selected data items and one or more attributes in the selected at least one focus area and the remaining portions of the data set, wherein the generated visual representation is composed to have an order and layout to represent the mined results.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein using the at least one analytic technique comprises selecting at least one analytic technique from among plural different analytic techniques.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein selecting the at least one analytic technique from among the plural analytic techniques comprise selecting the analytic technique from among a statistical technique, a similarity measure technique, and a data mining technique.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein producing the visual representation comprises producing a reordered version of the visualization of the data set in which data collections in the visualization of the data set have been reordered.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the visual representation comprises generating an interactive visual representation.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the visual representation comprises generating the visual representation that is transformed from the visualization of the data set.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected focus area has at least a first attribute, and wherein generating the visual representation comprises generating the visual representation in which attributes are displayed in a layout according to the mined relationships.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the selection of the focus area in the visualization comprises receiving selection of the focus area in one of a visualization map, a parallel coordinates graph, and a scatter plot graph.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving selection of the focus area in the visualization comprises receiving selection according to one of multiple use cases, the multiple use cases including a first use case in which one attribute in one group is selected in the focus area, a second use case in which multiple attributes in one group are selected in the focus area, a third use case in which one attribute in multiple groups is selected in the focus area, and a fourth use case in which multiple attributes in multiple groups are selected in the focus area.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein analyzing the characteristics comprises analyzing which of the use cases has been selected in the focus area.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the selection of the focus area in the visualization comprises receiving the selection of the focus area in response to a rubber-banding selection made with an input pointer device.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein mining relationships between the focus area and the remaining portions of the data set comprises computing relevance measures between the focus area and the remaining portions of the data set, and wherein generating the visual representation is according to the computed relevance measures.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the characteristics of the selected focus area comprises analyzing the selected focus area to identify one or more attributes in one or more groups specified in the focus area.

14. A method executed by a computer of visualizing and analyzing data, comprising:

receiving a query that is responsive to selection of a target region in a first visualization of a data set, wherein the target region contains a portion of the data set;

in response to the query, analyzing the target region to determine characteristics of the target region;

according to the determined characteristics, selecting an analytic technique to mine relationships between the characteristics of the target region and characteristics of other portions of the data set; and

generating a second visual representation of at least some portions of the data set according to the mined relationships.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein generating the second visual representation of the at least some portions of the data set comprises generating the second visual representation containing at least one attribute contained in the target region and other attributes ordered with respect to the at least one attribute according to the mined relationships.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the first visual representation of the data set contains plural groups of the data set in a first order, and wherein generating the second visual representation of the at least some portions of the data set comprises generating the second visual representation containing the groups in a second order different from the first order, wherein the second order is according to the mined relationships.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein selecting the analytic technique comprises selecting from among plural analytic techniques, the plural analytic techniques comprising a statistical analytic technique, a similarity measure technique, a clustering technique, and a classification technique.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein the first and second visualization screens assign different colors to different data values or groups of data.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein analyzing the target region to determine the characteristics comprises analyzing the target region to determine which of plural use cases have been selected, and wherein selecting the analytic technique is based on which of the plural use cases have been selected.

20. Instructions on a computer-usable storage medium that when executed cause a computer to:

receive selection of a target region in a visualization screen that provides visualization of a data set;

analyze characteristics of the selected target region;

based on the characteristics of the selected target region, select an analytic technique to mine relationships between the selected target region and other portions of the data set; and

produce a visual representation composed to have an order and layout according to the mined relationships.

21. The instructions of claim 20, wherein producing the visual representation comprises producing one of:

a visual representation in which other attributes are positioned with respect to the at least one attribute in the selected target region according to the mined relationships; and

a visual representation in which an order of plural data collections of the data set is based on the mined relationships.