Information Visualization

Graph and Tree Visualization

Graphs are natural representations for relations. Even though many graph drawing algorithms are available, the scale and complexity of some of the large-scale databases and document collections demand research innovations in graph drawing as well as the accompanied interactive data interrogation techniques. Our research is beyond the traditional graph drawing work because we address more the user interface and interaction aspects of problem.
Publications:
Path Visualization for Adjacency Matrices. Zeqian Shen and Kwan-Liu Ma. In Proceedings of EuroVis 2007.

Visual Analysis of Large Heterogeneous Social Networks by Utilizing Semantics and Structure, Zeqian Shen, Kwan-Liu Ma, and Tina Eliassi-Rad, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, special issue on Visual Analytics, Volume 12, Number 6, 2006, pp. 1427-1439. [pdf]

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Tree Visualization Systems for Knowledge Discovery, Yue Wang, Soon Tee Teoh, and Kwan-Liu Ma, Proceedings of Eurographics Visualization Symposium, May 8-10, 2006. [pdf]

Discovering Parametric Clusters in Social Small-World Graphs, Jonathan McPherson, Kwan-Liu Ma and Micahel Ogawa, ACM Symposium on Applied Computing 2005.

MoireGraphs: Raidal Focus+Context Visualization and Interaction for Graph with Visual Nodes, T.J. Jankun-Kelly and Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of Information Visualization 2003 Symposium. [pdf]

RINGS: A Techniques for Visualizing Large Hierarchies, Soon Tee Teoh and Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of Graph Drawing 2002. [pdf]

Visual Data Mining

We study how visual-based approach can help classify and understand high dimensional data, for example, through interactive construction and visualization of decision trees. We also study how to use visualization to examine large amounts of information at different scales.
Publications:
Visuaization of Email Logs for Spam Analysis, Chris Muelder and Kwan-Liu Ma, submitted to APVIS 2007.

BiblioViz: A System for Visualizing Bibliography Information, Zeqian Shen, Michael Ogawa, Soon Tee Teoh, and Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of the 2006 Asia-Pacific Symposium on Infomration Visualization, pp. 93-102.

Hifocon: Focus+Context in Multidimensional Visualization, Soon Tee Teoh and Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Visual Computing, December 5-7, 2005

PaintingClass: Interactive Construction, Visualization and Exploration of Decision Trees, Soon Tee Teoh and Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of ACM KDD 2003 Conference, August 24-27.

StarClass: Interactive Visual Classification Using Star Coordinates, Soon Tee Teoh and Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of the 3rd SIAM International Conference on Data Mining, May 1-3, 2003, pp. 178-185.

Computer Security Data Visualization

To ensure the security and performance of the Internet, information visualization techniques can help characterize network data, identify weakness in network connectivity, and detect and explain actual anomalous events. Our research focuses on interactive visualization of connectivity data, as well as collected routing data and session data.
[More information]
Publications:
Visualization of Santized Email Logs for Spam Analysis, Chris Muelder and Kwan-Liu Ma. In Proceedings of APVIS 2007.

Cyber Security through Visualization, Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of the 2006 Asia-Pacific Symposium on Infomration Visualization, pp. 3-7.

A Visualization Methodology for Characterization of Network Scans, Chris Muelder, Kwan-Liu Ma, and Tony Bartoletti, in Proceedings of Workshop on Visualization for Computer Security (VizSEC 2005), Visualization 2005 Conference, October 2005. [pdf]

Interactive Visualization for Network and Port Scan Detection, Chris Muelder and Kwan-Liu Ma, RAID 2005, September 2005. [pdf]

PortVis: A Tool for Port-Based Detection of Security Events, Jonathan McPherson, Kwan-Liu Ma, Paul Krystosek, Tony Bartoletti, Marvin Christensen, VizSEC 2004. [pdf]

Visual Data Analysis for Detecting Flaws and Intruders in Computger Network Systems, Soon tee Teoh, T. J. Jankun-Kelly, Kwan-Liu Ma, and S. Felix Wu, IEEE Computer Graphics and Application, to appeaer 2004

A Visual Exploration Process for the Analysis of Internet Routing Data, Soon Tee Teoh, Kwan-Liu Ma, and Felix Wu, in Proceedings of IEEE Visualization 2003 Conference.

Case Study: Interactive Visualization for Internet Security, Soon Tee Teoh, Kwan-Liu Ma, and Felix Wu, in Proceedings of IEEE Visualization 2002 Conference.

Software Visualization

Managing large-scale software development and the understanding of large software systems present many research opportunities for information visualization. How can visualization help understand the relationship betweeen the communication between developers and the evolution of the source code? Furthermore, program comprehension is key to software maintenance. How can visualization help understand programs in a way not complicated by scale and contextuality.
[More information]
Publications:
StarGate: A Unified, Interactive Visualization of Software Projects, Michael Ogawa et al., Proceedings of PacificVis 2008. [pdf]

Visualizing Social Interaction in Open Source Software Projects, Michael Ogawa et al., Proceedings of APVIS 2007. [pdf]

Stable, Flexible, Peephole Pretty-Printing, Stoney Jackson, Premkumar Devanbu, and Kwan-Liu Ma. (submitted for publication)

Visualizing Visualizations

We develop visual interfaces that can help scientists keep track of their visualization experience and findings, use it to generate new visualizations, and share it with others.
Publications:
A Model and Framework for Visualization Exploration, T.J. Jankun-Kelly, Kwan-Liu Ma, and Michael Gertz, IEEE Transaction on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2007 (to appear).

A Model for the Visualization Exploration Process, T.J. Jankun-Kelly, Kwan-Liu Ma, and Michael Gertz, in Proceedings of the Visualization 2002 Conference. [pdf]

Visualization Exploration and Encapsulation via a Spreadsheet-Like Interface, T.J. Jankun-Kelly and Kwan-Liu Ma, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 7(3), July-September 2001, pp.275-287. [pdf]

Visualizing Visualizations: User Interfaces for management and Exploration of Scientific Visualization Data, Kwan-Liu Ma, Visualization Viewpoints, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, September/October 2000. [pdf]

Image Graphs - A Novel Interface for Visual Data Exploration, Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of the Visualization '99 Conference. [pdf]

		Graph and Tree Visualization Graphs are natural representations for relations. Even though many graph drawing algorithms are available, the scale and complexity of some of the large-scale databases and document collections demand research innovations in graph drawing as well as the accompanied interactive data interrogation techniques. Our research is beyond the traditional graph drawing work because we address more the user interface and interaction aspects of problem. Publications: Path Visualization for Adjacency Matrices. Zeqian Shen and Kwan-Liu Ma. In Proceedings of EuroVis 2007. Visual Analysis of Large Heterogeneous Social Networks by Utilizing Semantics and Structure, Zeqian Shen, Kwan-Liu Ma, and Tina Eliassi-Rad, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, special issue on Visual Analytics, Volume 12, Number 6, 2006, pp. 1427-1439. [pdf] Evaluating the Effectiveness of Tree Visualization Systems for Knowledge Discovery, Yue Wang, Soon Tee Teoh, and Kwan-Liu Ma, Proceedings of Eurographics Visualization Symposium, May 8-10, 2006. [pdf] Discovering Parametric Clusters in Social Small-World Graphs, Jonathan McPherson, Kwan-Liu Ma and Micahel Ogawa, ACM Symposium on Applied Computing 2005. MoireGraphs: Raidal Focus+Context Visualization and Interaction for Graph with Visual Nodes, T.J. Jankun-Kelly and Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of Information Visualization 2003 Symposium. [pdf] RINGS: A Techniques for Visualizing Large Hierarchies, Soon Tee Teoh and Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of Graph Drawing 2002. [pdf]


		Visual Data Mining We study how visual-based approach can help classify and understand high dimensional data, for example, through interactive construction and visualization of decision trees. We also study how to use visualization to examine large amounts of information at different scales. Publications: Visuaization of Email Logs for Spam Analysis, Chris Muelder and Kwan-Liu Ma, submitted to APVIS 2007. BiblioViz: A System for Visualizing Bibliography Information, Zeqian Shen, Michael Ogawa, Soon Tee Teoh, and Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of the 2006 Asia-Pacific Symposium on Infomration Visualization, pp. 93-102. Hifocon: Focus+Context in Multidimensional Visualization, Soon Tee Teoh and Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Visual Computing, December 5-7, 2005 PaintingClass: Interactive Construction, Visualization and Exploration of Decision Trees, Soon Tee Teoh and Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of ACM KDD 2003 Conference, August 24-27. StarClass: Interactive Visual Classification Using Star Coordinates, Soon Tee Teoh and Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of the 3rd SIAM International Conference on Data Mining, May 1-3, 2003, pp. 178-185.


		Computer Security Data Visualization To ensure the security and performance of the Internet, information visualization techniques can help characterize network data, identify weakness in network connectivity, and detect and explain actual anomalous events. Our research focuses on interactive visualization of connectivity data, as well as collected routing data and session data. [More information] Publications: Visualization of Santized Email Logs for Spam Analysis, Chris Muelder and Kwan-Liu Ma. In Proceedings of APVIS 2007. Cyber Security through Visualization, Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of the 2006 Asia-Pacific Symposium on Infomration Visualization, pp. 3-7. A Visualization Methodology for Characterization of Network Scans, Chris Muelder, Kwan-Liu Ma, and Tony Bartoletti, in Proceedings of Workshop on Visualization for Computer Security (VizSEC 2005), Visualization 2005 Conference, October 2005. [pdf] Interactive Visualization for Network and Port Scan Detection, Chris Muelder and Kwan-Liu Ma, RAID 2005, September 2005. [pdf] PortVis: A Tool for Port-Based Detection of Security Events, Jonathan McPherson, Kwan-Liu Ma, Paul Krystosek, Tony Bartoletti, Marvin Christensen, VizSEC 2004. [pdf] Visual Data Analysis for Detecting Flaws and Intruders in Computger Network Systems, Soon tee Teoh, T. J. Jankun-Kelly, Kwan-Liu Ma, and S. Felix Wu, IEEE Computer Graphics and Application, to appeaer 2004 A Visual Exploration Process for the Analysis of Internet Routing Data, Soon Tee Teoh, Kwan-Liu Ma, and Felix Wu, in Proceedings of IEEE Visualization 2003 Conference. Case Study: Interactive Visualization for Internet Security, Soon Tee Teoh, Kwan-Liu Ma, and Felix Wu, in Proceedings of IEEE Visualization 2002 Conference.


		Software Visualization Managing large-scale software development and the understanding of large software systems present many research opportunities for information visualization. How can visualization help understand the relationship betweeen the communication between developers and the evolution of the source code? Furthermore, program comprehension is key to software maintenance. How can visualization help understand programs in a way not complicated by scale and contextuality. [More information] Publications: StarGate: A Unified, Interactive Visualization of Software Projects, Michael Ogawa et al., Proceedings of PacificVis 2008. [pdf] Visualizing Social Interaction in Open Source Software Projects, Michael Ogawa et al., Proceedings of APVIS 2007. [pdf] Stable, Flexible, Peephole Pretty-Printing, Stoney Jackson, Premkumar Devanbu, and Kwan-Liu Ma. (submitted for publication)


		Visualizing Visualizations We develop visual interfaces that can help scientists keep track of their visualization experience and findings, use it to generate new visualizations, and share it with others. Publications: A Model and Framework for Visualization Exploration, T.J. Jankun-Kelly, Kwan-Liu Ma, and Michael Gertz, IEEE Transaction on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2007 (to appear). A Model for the Visualization Exploration Process, T.J. Jankun-Kelly, Kwan-Liu Ma, and Michael Gertz, in Proceedings of the Visualization 2002 Conference. [pdf] Visualization Exploration and Encapsulation via a Spreadsheet-Like Interface, T.J. Jankun-Kelly and Kwan-Liu Ma, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 7(3), July-September 2001, pp.275-287. [pdf] Visualizing Visualizations: User Interfaces for management and Exploration of Scientific Visualization Data, Kwan-Liu Ma, Visualization Viewpoints, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, September/October 2000. [pdf] Image Graphs - A Novel Interface for Visual Data Exploration, Kwan-Liu Ma, in Proceedings of the Visualization '99 Conference. [pdf]