Introduction

1.8 Summary

In this chapter, we introduced geographical visualization as the starting point of our journey, emphasizing that the goal of information visualization is to represent abstract information spaces intuitively and naturally. We also pointed out that the power of information visualization will only be fully understood when information visualization becomes an integral part of users’ activity. Optimal foraging theory and cognitive maps were introduced, to provide a wider context in which to shape the requirements for information visualization.

In Chapter 2, we focus on techniques to extract salient structures from a complex information system, for the purpose of information visualization. In subsequent chapters, we will demonstrate the visualization techniques available to deal with these structures.