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Zooming Techniques

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Database Systems

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Synonyms

Multiscale interface; Scaling; Zoomable userinterface (ZUI)

Definition

Zooming facilitates data presentation on limited screen real-estate by allowing the users to alter the scale of the viewport such that it shows a decreasing fraction of the information space with an increasing magnification. Hence the system may first present a global overview of the information space for the benefit of orientation, and in a second step, the users can then dynamically re-allocate the screen space based on the information objects they are interested in. A navigation technique commonly used in conjunction with zooming is panning: a movement of the viewport over the information space at a constant scale.

Historical Background

The first application to use zooming as a fundamental interface approach was the Spatial Data Management System (SDMS) [1] in 1978 (see Fig. 1). The SDMS system relied heavily on custom hardware, including an octophonic sound system and an instrumented chair equipped...

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Recommended Reading

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Konstanz, Constance, Germany

    Harald Reiterer

  2. Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany

    Thorsten Büring

Authors
  1. Harald Reiterer
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  2. Thorsten Büring
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Harald Reiterer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. Computer Science Department, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstraße 10, D-78457, Konstanz, Germany

    Daniel A. Keim

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Reiterer, H., Büring, T. (2016). Zooming Techniques. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_1128-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_1128-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-7993-3

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