SunBurst Visualization Tool Implementation

Sponsor	John Stasko stasko@cc.gatech.edu 253 CoC
Area	Human-Computer Interaction

Problem
Understanding large information repositories can be extremely challenging and tedious without good tools to help you browse through the information. Take, for example, all your files and directories on a computer. They can easily number in the thousands, so getting a handle on what is and isn't there can be tricky.

We've developed a visualization tool for depicting all the files and directories that a person has. It's called SunBurst and it uses a radial pie-slice methodology to present a person's files and directories. The system currently runs under Solaris UNIX and the X Window System (~stasko/Public/sunburst). In this challenging project, you will make a number of user interface enhancements to the system and/or you will reimplement Sunburst on another system such as Windows or the Mac.

Background
Read the following three articles to learn more about space-filling visualizations such as the SunBurst.

Johnson, Brian and Shneiderman, Ben, "Tree-maps: A Space Filling Approach to the Visualization of Hierarchical Information Structures", Proceedings of the IEEE Visualization '91, Oct. 1991, San Diego, CA, pp. 284-291.
Andrews, Keith and Heidegger, Helmut, "Information Slices: Visualising and Exploring Large Hierarchies using Cascading, Semi-Circular Discs", IEEE Information Visualization Symposium 1998, Late Breaking Hot Topics Proceedings, Oct. 1998, pp. 9-12.
Stasko, John, Guzdial Mark, and McDonald, Kevin, "Evaluating Space-Filling Visualizations for Hierarchical Structures", Unpublished article, 1999.

All these articles can be picked up from Prof. Stasko.

Next, run the system and understand what it does and how it works. Get the source code for the system and decide what you will be implementing. For UI enhancements, any number of possibilities exist such as popping up the name and size of a file as the mouse passes over it, enhanced focusing commands for highlighting a particular file or directory, etc. (Please speak with Prof. Stasko for more ideas.)

Deliverables
You should turn in your software along with a brief (3-5 page) report that describes what you have done.

Evaluation
You will be evaluated on the quality of your implementation, what you have accomplished, and how much you have completed. Also, the overall quality of the report will be judged, including its depth and insights.