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The Visage prototype is an evolving user interface and software environment. It possesses four component capabilities:
- Data Navigation: Drill Down, Roll Up
- Starting from any point in a data network, users may access a menu of alternative dimensions along which they may navigate. The user drills down along any of these dimensions by simply selecting from the menu. Dynamic drill down is a fundamental operation in Visage that can occur in every display.
Roll up (aggregation) is the complement to drill down. Subsets of units can be rolled up (i.e., aggregated) into a single object and named by the user. The new aggregate can be treated as a single object. This approach enables users to compose a complex query through a series of drill-down, drag, paint, and roll-up operations. In Visage, very complex queries may be composed entirely by direct manipulation.
- Information-Centric Data Manipulation: Drag and Drop
- An important operation in this information-centric interface approach is the direct-manipulation of information throughout the Visage environment. Objects representing information are moved directly in groups or individually among visualization and application interfaces via simple drag-and-drop operations.
- Intelligent Visualizations with Sage
- Visage incorporates the capabilities of Sage, a knowledge-based presentation system that designs graphical displays of complex data (e.g., quantitative, relational, temporal, hierarchical, categorical, geographic) to provide automatic graphics generation.
- Integrated and Interactive Presentations
- The Visage environment has a simple briefing or "slide show" feature completely integrated into the application. As analyses are performed, text and graphics can be captured and saved in special frames called "slides." Elements on a slide do not lose their separate identity--they are still fully functional interface objects that can be used for further analysis--even in the midst of a briefing. Thus, the briefing function has been seamlessly integrated with those of data exploration and analysis.
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Features
