Radial Treemaps

By: Jeff Clark    Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006

In the previous post I briefly described an application based on a type of visualization called a Treemap. They are definitely a useful technique in the right context but after exploring them a bit I found the generated images a bit unsatisfying. The things that I dislike about them are:

  1. the irregularity of the layout
  2. the hierarchies are not clearly expressed
  3. it's difficult to illustrate multi-level hierarchies

Problems 2 & 3 are nicely addressed by a variation which Kai Wetzel calls a Circular Treemap. This design has the obvious drawback that the visualization is no longer space-filling - you can't fit as much information into the same area as with the standard rectangular treemap.

Another variation that occurred to me which sacrifices some information density for perhaps a more natural form is what I have called a 'Multi-Level Pie Chart'. I created an implementation of this technique and found it a reasonably satisfying approach for visually exploring hierarchical data. I'll describe it in detail in a future post. If you just can't wait any longer then you can get some flavour of the idea by investigating the Sunburst Project from Georgia Tech.

 


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