Introduction to Hyperglyphs

"No, I can't explain the dance to you; if I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it."
- Isadora Duncan

These lessons were originally developed for the PEARC 2018 Conference. Download the Slides for this presentation.

Download a zip archive containing all files for this tutorial.

What is a Glyph?

The concept of a glyph in scientific visualization is well known and has found numerous applications over the years. However, the limits to the level of complexity of glyph structure have only begun to be fully explored. At the same time, a growing percentage of the big data torrent consists of semi-structured, unstructured, and non-traditional data, presenting a challenge for conventional visualization methods. Some of these types of data are so complex it is difficult for researchers to know where to begin in seeking insight into trends and anomalies hidden within. We need new and innovative ways to explore such massive amounts of complex data.

From Glyph to Hyperglyph

In this tutorial we provide a brief history of glyphs in scientific visualization and conditions in which their use is appropriate and beneficial. We make the case that these conventional, simple glyphs should be extended and complexified into what we call ‘hyperglyphs’, highly complex visual structures designed to encapsulate much more information within a single glyph and which, when thousands are arrayed in 3D space and with user training and adaptation, can significantly enhance perception and information assimilation leading to new knowledge and insight. We show how our work has led to the creation of successful startup commercial ventures in the field of visual analytics. We provide a wide range of examples from diverse fields including education, physiology, meteorology, public health, and social media. Participants will have the opportunity to get hands-on experience with interactive glyph design using free open source tools.

The best way to understand hyperglyphs is to get your hands dirty trying to apply the concept to actual data. The best application I have found to do this is a program called ANTz. To use ANTz, you need to write code that converts data to the ANTz CSV format. This tutorial covers code samples in Python, C, and PHP. Once you learn the basics of creating multi-level hyperglyphs in code, you can apply the same concepts in a myriad of ways using your own insight and creativity.

Here's a movie of some of my more recent work: