Augmenting MATLAB with semantic objects for an interactive visual environment

Analysis tools such as Matlab, R, and SAS support a myriad of built-in computational functions and various standard visualization techniques. However, most of them provide little interaction from visualizations mainly due to the fact that the tools treat the data as just numerical vectors or matrices while ignoring any semantic meaning associated with them. To solve this limitation, we augment Matlab, one of the widely used data analysis tools, with the capability of directly handling the underlying semantic objects and their meanings. Such capabilities allow users to flexibly assign essential interaction capabilities, such as brushing-and-linking and details-on-demand interactions, to visualizations. To demonstrate the capabilities, two usage scenarios in document and graph analysis domains are presented.