Trees

COMP7507
Visualization & Visual Analytics
Graphs
• Graphs are best for representing relational
structures
– Relational database
– Object-oriented systems (class browsers)
– Data structure (compiler data structure)
– Real-time systems (state-transition diagrams)
– Virtual reality (scene graphs)
– Evolutionary trees, phylogenetic trees, genetic maps
– Social networks, citation networks
– Computer networks
– World wide web
– …

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Graphs
• A graph G=(V, E) comprises a finite set V of vertices (or
nodes) and a set E of edges (or lines), with each edge being
an unordered pair (u, v) of vertices, u, v Î V.
• A directed graph consists of ordered pairs of vertices.

1 1

3 3
2 2

4 4

undirected graph directed graph

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Graphs
• The degree of a vertex
= the number of edges incident to it
= the number of neighboring vertices.

1 in_deg(v3) = 2 1

deg(v3) = 3 out_deg(v3) = 1

3 3
2 2

4 4

undirected graph directed graph

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Graphs
• A path is a sequence of edges connecting a
sequence of vertices
• A graph is connected if there is a path between
any two vertices.
1 1

3 3
2 2

4 4

connected graph disconnected graph

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Graph Representation
1

3
2

Adjacency Matrix • Random access to edges

Target • O(n2) space
1 2 3 4
1 0 2 1 0
• Not a compact storage,
2 0 0 3 0
especially when the matrix is
Source
3 0 0 0 2
a sparse matrix (i.e., a graph
4 0 0 0 0
with only a few edges)
Matrix entries storing edge weights or labels 6
Graph Representation
1

3
2

Adjacency List Edge List • Storage

1 -> 2, 3 1, 2, 2
proportional to
2 -> 3 1, 3, 1 number of edges
3 -> 4 2, 3, 3
3, 4, 2
• However, only
support sequential
List the edges for each vertex Enumerates all edges access to edges
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Graph Drawing
• There are many different ways of drawing a
graph. Danny Mary John
Venus Paul
Paul

John Danny Peter

Elvis
Ann
Mary Elvis Jack
Peter
Jack
Ann a planar graph
Venus

• Whether a drawing is good or not is subjective

and depends on perception.
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Graph Drawing
Requirements
• Drawing conventions
– Rules specific to certain applications / professions
• Aesthetics
– Readability, layout
• Constraints

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Drawing Conventions
• Straight-line drawing
• Polyline drawing
• Orthogonal drawing
• Planar drawing
• Grid drawing
• Upward drawing

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Aesthetics
• Aims to characterize readability with general
optimization goals:
– Minimize
• # of crossings
• Total area
• Total edge length
• Maximum edge length
• Total number of bends (in orthogonal drawings)
– Maximize
• Angular resolution (smallest angles between two edges)
• Maximum display of symmetry
– Maintain aspect ratio of the entire drawing

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Aesthetics
• In general, aesthetic criteria are in conflicts.

No edge crossing, Symmetric,

but asymmetric but with edge crossing

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Constraints
• Enhance readability by adding knowledge about
the semantics of the graph
– Place a vertex close to the middle
– Place a vertex on the external boundary
– Place a subset of vertices close together
– Draw a subgraph with a specific shape

clique
i.e., complete subgraph

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Graph Drawing
Key issues
• Graph size
– need filtering, clustering?
• Predictability
– similar drawing for the same graph every time?
• Time complexity
– Is real-time interaction possible?

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Trees
Trees
• A tree is a directed acyclic graph:
– Exactly one unique vertex called the root with no
parents
– Every vertex except the root has a parent
– There is a path from the root to each vertex
• Trees are good for representing:
– Hierarchies (file systems, web sites, organization
charts)
– Branching Processes (family lineage, evolution)
– Decision processes (search trees, game trees,
decision trees)
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Tree Layouts
• Indentation
– Tree depth is encoded by indentation
• Node-Link Diagrams
– Nodes connected by lines/curves
• Layered Diagrams
– Hierarchical structure represented by layering, adjacency or
alignment
• Enclosure/Containment Diagrams
– Hierarchical structure represented by enclosure

• In general, tree layout can be done efficiently in O(n) or

O(n log n) time

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Indentation
• Items are listed in rows
• Indentation is used to
show parent/child
relationship
• Multivariate data can
be displayed in columns
• Takes up excessive
vertical space

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Node-Link Diagrams
Breadth (branching)

Depth
(levels)

• Objects represented as nodes are distributed in

space; relationships are represented by straight or
curved lines connecting nodes
• Breadth and depth of a tree are layout in different
directions/dimensions in 2D
• Problem: breadth may grow exponentially when
branching factor is large
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Reingold-Tilford Algorithm
The Flare visualization toolkit hierarchy
[Heer et al. 2010]

• A classical layout in which children nodes are positioned under their common
parent
• Same drawing for isometric subtrees and no edge crossing
• Leave nodes are at different levels

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Radial Layout
• Node-link diagram but
in polar co-ordinates
• Leaf nodes are all at
the circumference
(dendrogram)
• Root node at the
center
• Visually more pleasing
and spatially more
[Heer et al. 2010] efficient
The Flare visualization toolkit hierarchy
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Radial Layout

An animated radial tree layout

with root change

[http://philogb.github.io/jit/static/v20/Jit/Examples/RGraph/example1.html]
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Cone Trees
• Make use of more
space with 3D, i.e.,
an additional
dimension
• Nodes at apex of a
cone
• Children evenly
Robertson et al., "Cone Trees: Animated 3D Visualizations of
Hierarchical Information", CHI'91.
spaced along the
cone base

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Cone Trees
• An example

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eO1pgTVu-g] 24
Balloon Trees
• Children are positioned around their
parent
• Like flattening a cone tree, but
without overlapping among circles.

Carriere and Kazman, “Research Report:

Interacting with Huge Hierarchies: Beyond
Cone Trees”, Proc. of Information
Visualization '95.

[http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/50-great-examples-of-data-visualization/]
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Problems of Node-Link Diagrams
• Tree breadth may grow exponentially
• Easily run out of space, even with space efficient
layout
• Solution:
– Filtering
– Clustering / Aggregation
– Interactions, e.g., focus + context, scroll & pan, zoom
– Distortion (use different aspect ratios at different
regions)

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 Hyperbolic Layout

Illuminating hyperbolic geometry

[Escher]

Can you picture that

the creatures in
Escher’s drawing here
are all of the same size?

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Hyperbolic Layout
• A distorted view of a tree so that the region in
focus has more space for layout
H

A shape of same size at

different locations of the
hyperbolic plane are
projected to shapes of
E different sizes on the
Euclidean plane

• Design a tree layout in the hyperbolic plane, then

display the layout in the Euclidean plane
How may we change the focus of the tree layout? 28
Hyperbolic Layout

[ http://philogb.github.io/jit/static/v20/Jit/Examples/Hypertree/example1.html ]

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Layered Diagrams
Space-filling variant of the node-link diagrams
Nodes are drawn as solid areas with lengths
encoding an additional dimension
Relative position of nodes implies node
relationships
Hierarchical structure
represented by
• Layering
• Adjacency
Icicle Layout
• Alignment
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Layered Diagrams
Another example
Sunburst Layout

[Heer et al. 2010]

The Flare visualization toolkit hierarchy

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Enclosure/Containment Diagrams
Enclosure diagrams are space filling and makes maximal
use of the display space
Relations are represented by enclosure or containment of
shapes, e.g., rectangles / circles
Size of shapes can be used to show attributes,
e.g., country population
Colors are used to show
attributes or hierarchical
relationships
Examples:
– TreeMaps and its variants
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 Treemaps
• A compact representation by subdividing an area
into rectangles recursively
• The direction of subdivision alternates per level
Numbers represent respective data size

In this example, we subdivide horizontally at the first level

Johnson and Shneiderman, “Tree-Maps: a space-filling approach to the visualization of hierarchical information structures”, VIS '91.
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Treemaps
• Advantages:
– Gives a single overview of a tree
– Large or small nodes are easily identified
• Problems:
– Difficult to perceive
hierarchical structure

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 Treemaps
• To enhance hierarchical structure:

Use frame / padding Use shading (Cushion treemap)

Van Wijk and van de Wetering, “Cushion Treemaps:
[Heer et al. 2010]
Visualization of Hierarchical Information”, INFOVIS '99.

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Rectangles vs. Squares?
• Which is easier to compare, in terms of size?

Which one is bigger? Which one is bigger?

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Squarified Treemaps
Aspect ratio of a rectangle is taken as max(height/width, width/height)
• Observation:
– we can compare better the size of rectangles when their aspect
ratios are similar.
– subdividing area in a single dimension at each level (as is done
in ordinary treemap) results in elongated rectangles.
• Improvement:
– choose either horizontal and vertical split at each level
– add a rectangle to a row only when this will improve the layout
(i.e., aspect ratio)
• Adopt a greedy approach to process large rectangles
first, in order to achieve better aspect ratios.
• Final treemap layout is not guaranteed to be optimal.

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Squarified Treemaps
• An example
– To layout a tree node with seven children whose sizes
are 6, 6, 4, 3, 2, 2, 1 in a rectangle of size 6 x 4.

Ordinary treemap
[Bruls et al., “ Squarified Treemaps”, TCVG 2000]

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Squarified Treemaps

Subdivide horizontally, Add 2nd rect on top of 1st Add 3rd rect on top and
and add a new rect to improve the aspect the aspect ratio worsen,
(starting from the largest ratio hence discard layout
one)

Aspect ratio of a rectangle is

taken as max(height/width,
width/height)

Subdivide remaining area Add next rect to the right

vertically, and add a new rect to improve the aspect
ratio 39
Squarified Treemaps

Subdivide remaining area Add next rect to the right Add next rect to the right and
vertically, and add a new to improve the aspect the aspect ratio worsen,
rect ratio hence discard layout

Subdivide remaining area Add next rect to the top of previous

vertically, and add a new rect and the aspect ratio worsen, hence
discard layout 40
Squarified Treemaps

Subdivide remaining area Add next rect to the top of previous

vertically, and add a new and the aspect ratio worsen, hence
rect discard layout

Subdivide remaining area Add the last rect

vertically, and add a new rect and done
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Squarified Treemaps

• Problems:
– Change in dataset causes dramatic discontinuous change
– Orders not preserved (Solution: Ordered Treemaps)
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Circular Treemaps
• Use circles instead of rectangles

[Tree Visualizer] [Pebbles by Wetzel]

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Circular Treemaps
• Advantages:
– Easy to compare sizes
– Hierarchical structure is clear
• Problems:
– Not as space efficient

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Voronoi Treemaps
• Use arbitrary polygons to fill up an arbitrary space
• Boundaries not just formed by vertical and
horizontal lines, therefore easier to see hierarchical
structure
[Balzer and Deussen, “Voronoi treemaps”, InfoVis 2005.]

[Paul Murrel, University of Auckland]

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Voronoi Treemaps
• Use the idea of weighted centroidal Voronoi
tessellation (CVT) for generating the treemaps.
• Given a set of seed points, a Voronoi tessellation
is a partition of a domain into cells (one for each
seed point), so that every point within a cell is
closer to its seed point than to other seed points.

[ http://alexbeutel.com/webgl/voronoi.html ]

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Voronoi Treemaps
• A centroidal Voronoi tessellation (CVT) is a
Voronoi tessellation in which all seed points are
the centroid of their respective cell.
• Seed points are evenly
distributed
• Cells are about the same
size
• Weighted CVT: seed
points are weighted so a
seed point with higher
weight attracts a larger
neighbourhood 47
a CVT
Voronoi Treemaps
How to compute a CVT for
k seeds?
Lloyd’s relaxation
• Determine initial positions
for the k seeds
• Repeat the following relaxation step
until convergence, i.e., when the site
positions are fixed (ideal case)
– Compute the Voronoi tessellation
of the k sites
– Move each site to the centroid
of its Voronoi cell
https://youtu.be/HYDSxgNT1zc 48
Voronoi Treemaps
An interactive example: https://www.jasondavies.com/voronoi-treemap/

Cells of equal area Cells of area in proportion to data values

• Problems:
– Computation involves an iterative process, which can be
inefficient
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Voronoi Treemaps

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/05/03/business/20080403_SPENDING_GRAPHIC.html?_r=0]

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Reference
• Jeffrey Heer, Michael Bostock, and Vadim Ogievetsky. 2010.
A tour through the visualization zoo. Commun. ACM 53, 6
(June 2010), 59-67.
(http://hci.stanford.edu/jheer/files/zoo/)
• Matthew Ward, Georges Grinstein and Daniel Keim,
"Interactive Data Visualization: Foundations, Techniques, and
Applications", 2010 [Chapter 8]
• Isabel F. Cruz and Roberto Tamassia, “Graph Drawing
Tutorial” (http://cs.brown.edu/~rt/papers/gd-tutorial/gd-
constraints.pdf)

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