Tree-Maps: A Space-Filling

Approach to the
Visualization of
Hierarchical Information
Structures

Brian Johnson
Ben Shneiderman
(HCIL TR 91-06)
Steve Betten
February 14, 2001

Outline of Paper

Introduction
Comparison of methods
Example: directory tree
Treemap method
Algorithms
Coping with size
Future research directions

Introduction

Motivation: large hierarchical data

Methods

Objectives

Spatial versus textual methods

Interactive versus static methods
Efficient space utilization, interactivity,
comprehension, aesthetics

Hierarchical data: structure and content

Treemap emphasis on structure and leaves

Comparison of Methods

Motivating example

Viewing large file system hierarchies

Existing methods

Listings, outlines, tree diagrams

General problems

Navigational difficulty
Hidden content information
Text display of content information

Treemap

Comparison: Existing
Methods

Listings (e.g. Unix ls, DOS dir)

Outlines (e.g., Unix du, Windows explorer)

Good: detailed content information

Bad: navigation difficulty with explicit paths or
manual traversal
Good: display of both structure and content
Bad: navigation difficulty; only a few lines of
nodes show at a time

Listing and Outlines

Bad: required display space is linearly

proportional to number of nodes

Comparison: Existing
Methods (Continued)

Tree diagrams

Good

Effectiveness and pleasantness for small

hierarchies

Bad

Inefficient space utilization

Connections between nodes

50% of display is background
Only partial success of zooming and panning

Lack of content information in large hierarchies

Cluttering from text

For visual cues, insufficient size of nodes

Comparison: Treemap

Good

Efficient utilization of display area

Implicit display of structure

Overview of entire hierarchy

No need to draw separate internal nodes

More space for leaves and visual content cues
Rapid movement to any node
Preservation of context

Required display space is proportional to

square root of number of nodes

Example: Directory Tree

Problems with existing methods

Outline (Windows explorer): too many lines

Tree diagram (Open Windows File Manager):
wasted space
Venn diagram: wasted space

Treemap (nested and non-nested)

Easy identification of largest files on entire

file system
Easy identification of application, system,
text, picture, and archive files

Treemap Method

Structural information: partitioning

Weight (degree of interest) for each node

Properties

Node overlap only with ancestors or descendents

Node display area proportional to weight
Node weight sum of children's weights

Structural information

Implicitness via slice-and-dice

Explicitness via additional nesting

Treemap Method
(Continued)

Content information

Visual cues: color, texture, blinking

Popup windows that display content
Auditory cues that precede popup
windows

User control of properties that

decreases on-screen complexity

Algorithms

Drawing of treemap
Tracking of cursor movement

Interactive display of node details

Coping with Size

Average case analysis: pixels per

file
Problem of small nodes not
displaying

Possible solutions: magnification,

zooming
Insignificance (can usually ignore
them)

Future Research Directions

Alternative partitioning methods

Visual cues for numeric and nonnumeric content information

Dynamic views (animation over time)

Top-down

Stock portfolio

Node operations

Zooming, marking, selecting, searching

Favorite Sentence

Beard: Users are never lost because

they can see the complete information
space.
Expression of primary goal of treemap

Use of 2D graphics and implicit internal nodes

Display of entire hierarchy at once (structure)

Significant visual cues for most nodes (content)

Solution to previous navigation and content

problems

Contributions

Demonstration of application and

effectiveness of treemap
Provision of worthwhile direction for
future research

Alternative partitioning methods

Applications: stock (Smartmoney)

Propagation of treemap concept

Widely cited paper from 1991 IEEE

Visualization conference

Critique

Good

Definition of problem domain

Comparison to existing methods
Concrete and relevant example
Algorithms

Bad

Lack of emphasis on the difficulty of comparing

rectangles with different aspect ratios

Future research

Treemap Developments

Academia

1992: stock portfolio

visualization
1994: decision making
1994: satellite
management
1999: cushion treemap;
squarified treemap
2000: parameterized
rectangles
2000: TreeMap2000
2000: pivot by size;
pivot by position

Industry

DiskMapper
SeeDiff software
code viewer
Storyspace
hypertext authoring
system
Tcl/Tk widget
Smartmoney
PeopleMap
Peets Coffee

Link Recommendations

UMD HCIL history of treemap

TreeMap2000

www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/treemaps
www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/treemaps/treemap200
0

Demo comparison of five treemap

partitioning algorithms

www.columbia.edu/~mmw111/treemap/layo
ut.html