Visualizing Element Interactions in Dynamic Overlapping Sets

Abstract

Elements-the members in sets-may change their memberships over time. Moreover, elements also directly interact with each other, indicating an explicit connection between them. Visualizing both together becomes challenging. Using an existing dynamic set visualization as a basis, we propose an approach to encode the interactions of elements together with changing memberships in sets. We showcase the value in visually analyzing both aspects of elements together through two application examples. The first example shows the evolution of business portfolio and interactions (e.g., acquisitions and partnerships) among companies. A second example analyzes the dynamic collaborative interactions among researchers in computer science.