Innovations in Visualization

Real Magnification

Eric Pattison
Sheelagh Carpendale

Problem

One of the problems with a detail-in-context system is zooming into fat-pixels when one increases the magnification of the selected detail. The images below show an overpass in an aerial photograph being magnificed from 2x to 4x and finally to 8x. The fat pixels become an increasing problem.

Solution

My solution involves storing additional detail information in memory. This additional information is stored in such a way that it makes it easy to bring in the additional information as it is called for based on location and magnification of the lens that is looking into the information. The images below so the same overpass being magnified the same amounts using the Real Magnification algorithm.

Video

Attach:RealMagnification.mp4

Download video (17.1 MB)

Publication

M. Sheelagh T. Carpendale, J. Light and E. Pattison. Achieving Higher Magnification in Context. In UIST 2004: Proceedings of the 17th annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, CHI Letters. ACM, pages 71-80, 2004. PDF Paper Video File