%0 Journal Article %1 BostockHeer09tvcg %A Bostock, Michael %A Heer, Jeffrey %D 2009 %J IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics %K v1205 ieee paper information graphics generation synthesis design tool %N 6 %P 1121-1128 %R http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2009.174 %T Protovis: A Graphical Toolkit for Visualization %V 15 %X Despite myriad tools for visualizing data, there remains a gap between the notational efficiency of high-level visualization systems and the expressiveness and accessibility of low-level graphical systems. Powerful visualization systems may be inflexible or impose abstractions foreign to visual thinking, while graphical systems such as rendering APIs and vector-based drawing programs are tedious for complex work. We argue that an easy-to-use graphical system tailored for visualization is needed. In response, we contribute Protovis, an extensible toolkit for constructing visualizations by composing simple graphical primitives. In Protovis, designers specify visualizations as a hierarchy of marks with visual properties defined as functions of data. This representation achieves a level of expressiveness comparable to low-level graphics systems, while improving efficiency - the effort required to specify a visualization - and accessibility - the effort required to learn and modify the representation. We substantiate this claim through a diverse collection of examples and comparative analysis with popular visualization tools.

@article{BostockHeer09tvcg, abstract = {Despite myriad tools for visualizing data, there remains a gap between the notational efficiency of high-level visualization systems and the expressiveness and accessibility of low-level graphical systems. Powerful visualization systems may be inflexible or impose abstractions foreign to visual thinking, while graphical systems such as rendering APIs and vector-based drawing programs are tedious for complex work. We argue that an easy-to-use graphical system tailored for visualization is needed. In response, we contribute Protovis, an extensible toolkit for constructing visualizations by composing simple graphical primitives. In Protovis, designers specify visualizations as a hierarchy of marks with visual properties defined as functions of data. This representation achieves a level of expressiveness comparable to low-level graphics systems, while improving efficiency - the effort required to specify a visualization - and accessibility - the effort required to learn and modify the representation. We substantiate this claim through a diverse collection of examples and comparative analysis with popular visualization tools.}, added-at = {2012-05-30T10:43:22.000+0200}, author = {Bostock, Michael and Heer, Jeffrey}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2a057db38647020fd3b84fff083e3b5ec/flint63}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2009.174}, file = {IEEE Digital Library:2009/BostockHeer09tvcg.pdf:PDF}, groups = {public}, interhash = {ed99ccf7af38399bb6435b87d1267515}, intrahash = {a057db38647020fd3b84fff083e3b5ec}, issn = {1077-2626}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics}, keywords = {v1205 ieee paper information graphics generation synthesis design tool}, number = 6, pages = {1121-1128}, timestamp = {2018-04-16T12:22:23.000+0200}, title = {Protovis: A Graphical Toolkit for Visualization}, username = {flint63}, volume = 15, year = 2009 }