Visualizing Dynamic Data with Maps

Daisuke Mishama, Stephen Kobourov, Yifan Hu

Maps offer a familiar way to present geographic data (continents, countries), and additional information (topography, geology), can be displayed with the help of contours and heat-map overlays. In this paper we consider visualizing large-scale dynamic relational data by taking advantage of the geographic map metaphor. We describe a system that visualizes user traffic on the Internet radio station last.fm and address challenges in mental map preservation, as well as issues in animated map-based visualization.