{"title":"IntelliCircos: A Data-driven and AI-powered Authoring Tool for Circos Plots","authors":"Mingyang Gu, Jiamin Zhu, Qipeng Wang, Fengjie Wang, Xiaolin Wen, Yong Wang, Min Zhu","doi":"10.1111/cgf.70118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.70118","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Genomics data is essential in biological and medical domains, and bioinformatics analysts often manually create circos plots to analyze the data and extract valuable insights. However, creating circos plots is complex, as it requires careful design for multiple track attributes and positional relationships between them. Typically, analysts often seek inspiration from existing circos plots, and they have to iteratively adjust and refine the plot to achieve a satisfactory final design, making the process both tedious and time-intensive. To address these challenges, we propose IntelliCircos, an AI-powered interactive authoring tool that streamlines the process from initial visual design to the final implementation of circos plots. Specifically, we build a new dataset containing 4396 circos plots with corresponding annotations and configurations, which are extracted and labeled from published papers. With the dataset, we further identify track combination patterns, and utilize Large Language Model (LLM) to provide domain-specific design recommendations and configuration references to navigate the design of circos plots. We conduct a user study with 8 bioinformatics analysts to evaluate IntelliCircos, and the results demonstrate its usability and effectiveness in authoring circos plots.</p>","PeriodicalId":10687,"journal":{"name":"Computer Graphics Forum","volume":"44 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144681120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I. Pérez-Messina, M. Angelini, D. Ceneda, C. Tominski, S. Miksch
{"title":"Coupling Guidance and Progressiveness in Visual Analytics","authors":"I. Pérez-Messina, M. Angelini, D. Ceneda, C. Tominski, S. Miksch","doi":"10.1111/cgf.70115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.70115","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 <p>Data size and complexity in Visual Analytics (VA)pose significant challenges for VA systems andVA users. Two recent developments address these challenges: progressive VA (PVA) and guidance for VA (GVA). Both share the goal of supporting the analysis flow. PVA primarily considers the system perspective and incrementally generates partial results during long computations to avoid an unresponsive VA system. GVA is primarily concerned with the user perspective and strives to mitigate knowledge gaps during VA activities to prevent the analysis from stalling. Although PVA and GVA share the same goal, it has not yet been studied how PVA and GVA can join forces to achieve it. Our paper investigates this in detail. We structure our research around two questions: How can guidance enhance PVA and how can progressiveness enhance GVA? This leads to two main themes: Guidance for Progressiveness (G4P) and Progressiveness for Guidance (P4G). By exploring both themes, we arrive at a conceptual model of how progressiveness and guidance can work together. We illustrate the practical value of our theoretical considerations in two case studies ofG4P and P4G.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":10687,"journal":{"name":"Computer Graphics Forum","volume":"44 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cgf.70115","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144681119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Reem Alghamdi, Markus Hadwiger, Guido Reina, Alberto Jaspe-Villanueva
{"title":"Lactea: Web-Based Spectrum-Preserving Multi-Resolution Visualization of the GAIA Star Catalog","authors":"Reem Alghamdi, Markus Hadwiger, Guido Reina, Alberto Jaspe-Villanueva","doi":"10.1111/cgf.70117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.70117","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 <p>The explosion of data in astronomy has resulted in an era of unprecedented opportunities for discovery. The GAIA mission's catalog, containing a large number of light sources (mostly stars) with several parameters such as sky position and proper motion, is playing a significant role in advancing astronomy research and has been crucial in various scientific breakthroughs over the past decade. In its current release, more than 200 million stars contain a calibrated continuous spectrum, which is essential for characterizing astronomical information such as effective temperature and surface gravity, and enabling complex tasks like interstellar extinction detection and narrow-band filtering. Even though numerous studies have been conducted to visualize and analyze the data in the SciVis and AstroVis communities, no work has attempted to leverage spectral information for visualization in real-time. Interactive exploration of such complex, massive data presents several challenges for visualization. This paper introduces a novel multi-resolution, spectrum-preserving data structure and a progressive, real-time visualization algorithm to handle the sheer volume of the data efficiently, enabling interactive visualization and exploration of the whole catalog's spectra. We show the efficiency of our method with our open-source, interactive, web-based tool for exploring the GAIA catalog, and discuss astronomically relevant use cases of our system.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":10687,"journal":{"name":"Computer Graphics Forum","volume":"44 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cgf.70117","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144681121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Player-Centric Shot Maps in Table Tennis","authors":"A. Erades, R. Vuillemot","doi":"10.1111/cgf.70109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.70109","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 <p>Shot maps are popular in many sports as they typically plot events and player positions in the way they are collected, using a pitch or a table as an absolute coordinate system. We introduce a variation of a table tennis shot map that shifts the point of view from the table to the player. This results in a new reference system to plot incoming balls relative to the player's position rather than on the table. This approach aligns with how table tennis tactical analysis is conducted, focusing on identifying empty spaces and weak spots around the players. We describe the motivation behind this work, built through close collaboration with two table tennis experts, and demonstrate how this approach aligns with the way they analyze games to reveal key tactical aspects. We also present the design rationale and the computer vision pipeline used to accurately collect data from broadcast videos. Our findings show that the technique enables capturing insights that were not visible with the absolute coordinate system, particularly in understanding regions that are reachable and those close to the pivot area of the player.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":10687,"journal":{"name":"Computer Graphics Forum","volume":"44 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cgf.70109","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144681362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sara Di Bartolomeo, Markus Wallinger, Martin Nöllenburg
{"title":"Optimizing Staircase Motifs in Biofabric Network Layouts","authors":"Sara Di Bartolomeo, Markus Wallinger, Martin Nöllenburg","doi":"10.1111/cgf.70139","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.70139","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Biofabric is a novel method for network visualization, with promising potential to highlight specific network features. Recent studies emphasize the importance of staircase motifs — equivalent to fans or stars in node-link diagrams — within Biofabric. However, to effectively showcase these motifs, we need to formulate specialized layout algorithms. This paper introduces a method to compute optimal layouts for Biofabric, focusing on maximizing staircase formation. We present an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) model for this task and evaluate its performance in terms of scalability and output quality against a leading heuristic method, Degreecending. Our results demonstrate that the ILP approach identifies significantly more, and often longer, staircases compared to Degreecending, albeit with the trade-off of higher computation times. Our supplemental material, including a full copy of the paper, code, and results, is available on osf.io.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":10687,"journal":{"name":"Computer Graphics Forum","volume":"44 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cgf.70139","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144681363","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. van den Brandt, E. Ståhlbom, F.J.M. van Workum, H. van de Wetering, C. Lundström, S. Smit, A. Vilanova
{"title":"Multipla: Multiscale Pangenomic Locus Analysis","authors":"A. van den Brandt, E. Ståhlbom, F.J.M. van Workum, H. van de Wetering, C. Lundström, S. Smit, A. Vilanova","doi":"10.1111/cgf.70147","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.70147","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Comparing gene organization across genomic sequences reveals insights into evolutionary and functional diversity among different organisms and varieties. Performing this task across many sequences, such as from a pangenome, is challenging because of the scale, the density of information, and the inherent variation. Often, analyses are centered on a genomic region of interest—a locus that might be associated with a trait or contain genes within the same family or biological pathway. Within these regions, researchers examine the conservation of gene order and orientation across organisms and assess sequence similarity, along with other gene content features such as gene size, to find biological variations or potential errors in the data. Automated methods in comparative genomics struggle to identify meaningful patterns due to varying and often unknown features of interest, leaving manual, time-intensive, and scalability-challenged visualization as the primary alternative. To address these challenges, we present a multiscale design for studying gene organization within pangenomes, developed in close collaboration with domain experts. Our tool, <i>M<span>ultipla</span></i>, enables users to explore organization at multiple levels of detail in a decluttered manner through layout abstractions, semantic zooming, and layouts with flexible distance definitions and feature selections, combining the advantages of manual and automated methods used in practice. We evaluate the design of <i>M<span>ultipla</span></i> through two pangenomic use cases and conclude with lessons learned from designing multiscale views for pangenomic locus analysis.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":10687,"journal":{"name":"Computer Graphics Forum","volume":"44 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cgf.70147","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144681541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
R. Bauer, M. Evers, Q. Q. Ngo, G. Reina, S. Frey, M. Sedlmair
{"title":"Voronoi Cell Interface-Based Parameter Sensitivity Analysis for Labeled Samples","authors":"R. Bauer, M. Evers, Q. Q. Ngo, G. Reina, S. Frey, M. Sedlmair","doi":"10.1111/cgf.70122","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.70122","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Varying the input parameters of simulations or experiments often leads to different classes of results. Parameter sensitivity analysis in this context includes estimating the sensitivity to the individual parameters, that is, to understand which parameters contribute most to changes in output classifications and for which parameter ranges these occur. We propose a novel visual parameter sensitivity analysis approach based on Voronoi cell interfaces between the sample points in the parameter space to tackle the problem. The Voronoi diagram of the sample points in the parameter space is first calculated. We then extract Voronoi cell interfaces which we use to quantify the sensitivity to parameters, considering the class label information of each sample's corresponding output. Multiple visual encodings are then utilized to represent the cell interface transitions and class label distribution, including stacked graphs for local parameter sensitivity. We evaluate the approach's expressiveness and usefulness with case studies for synthetic and real-world datasets.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":10687,"journal":{"name":"Computer Graphics Forum","volume":"44 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cgf.70122","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144681542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"MatplotAlt: A Python Library for Adding Alt Text to Matplotlib Figures in Computational Notebooks","authors":"Kai Nylund, Jennifer Mankoff, Venkatesh Potluri","doi":"10.1111/cgf.70119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.70119","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>We present MatplotAlt, an open-source Python package for easily adding alternative text to Matplotlib figures. MatplotAlt equips Jupyter notebook authors to automatically generate and surface chart descriptions with a single line of code or command, and supports a range of options that allow users to customize the generation and display of captions based on their preferences and accessibility needs. Our evaluation indicates that MatplotAlt's heuristic and LLM-based methods to generate alt text can create accurate long-form descriptions of both simple univariate and complex Matplotlib figures. We find that state-of-the-art LLMs still struggle with factual errors when describing charts, and improve the accuracy of our descriptions by prompting GPT4-turbo with heuristic-based alt text or data tables parsed from the Matplotlib figure.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":10687,"journal":{"name":"Computer Graphics Forum","volume":"44 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cgf.70119","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144681339","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jane Lydia Adams, Robyn L. Ball, Jason A. Bubier, Elissa J. Chesler, Melanie Tory, Michelle A. Borkin
{"title":"Gridded Visualization of Statistical Trees for High-Dimensional Multipartite Data in Systems Genetics","authors":"Jane Lydia Adams, Robyn L. Ball, Jason A. Bubier, Elissa J. Chesler, Melanie Tory, Michelle A. Borkin","doi":"10.1111/cgf.70113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.70113","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In systems genetics and other multi-omics research, exploring high-dimensional relationships among molecular and physiological variables across individuals poses significant challenges. We present the Gridded Trees interface, a novel interactive visualization tool designed to facilitate the exploration of conditional inference trees, which are hierarchical models of relationships in these complex datasets. Traditional static tools struggle to reveal patterns in tree-structured data, but the Gridded Trees interface provides interactive, coordinated views, allowing users to navigate between overview and detail, filter data dynamically, and compare molecular-physiological relationships across subgroups. By combining filtering techniques, strip plots, Sankey diagrams, and small multiples, the Gridded Trees interface enhances exploratory data analysis and supports hypothesis generation. In our systems genetics research use case, this tool has revealed significant associations among microbial populations and addiction-related behavioral traits in genetically diverse mice. The Gridded Trees interface suggests broad potential for visualizing hierarchical and multipartite data across domains. A preprint of this paper as well as Supplemental Materials are available on OSF at https://osf.io/9emn5/.</p>","PeriodicalId":10687,"journal":{"name":"Computer Graphics Forum","volume":"44 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144681414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Instructional Comics for Self-Paced Learning of Data Visualization Tools and Concepts","authors":"M. Boucher, M. AlKadi, B. Bach, W. Aigner","doi":"10.1111/cgf.70130","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.70130","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this paper, we introduce instructional comics to explain concepts and routines in data visualization tools. As tools for visual data exploration proliferate, there is a growing need for tailored training and onboarding demonstrating interfaces, concepts, and interactions. Building on recent research in visualization education, we detail our iterative process of designing instructional comics for four different types of instructional content. Through a mixed-method eye-tracking study involving 20 participants, we analyze how people engage with these comics when using a new visualization tool, and validate our design choices. We interpret observed behaviors as unique affordances of instructional comics, supporting their use during tasks and complementing traditional instructional methods like video tutorials and workshops, and formulate six guidelines to inform the design of future instructional comics for visualization.</p>","PeriodicalId":10687,"journal":{"name":"Computer Graphics Forum","volume":"44 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144681340","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}