Comments on: Treemap as Relational Navigation

By: TheStreetBullFinder

TheStreetBullFinder — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:30:56 +0000

Great code indeed. I've used your code on TheStreetBullFinder to display stock picks and it's performance track record. TreeMaps are really puzzling and intriguing way of data presentation… Thanks.

By: The disappearing act | cathycracks.com

The disappearing act | cathycracks.com — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 04:21:42 +0000

[...] the whole movement of social web and information architecture. It’s nothing new, but treemap has always intrigued me as a different way of delivering [...]

By: AbusedMedia » Blog Archive » TreeMap: recursive algorithm as user interface

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 17:54:49 +0000

[...] There are several projects that involve the treemap algorithm out there, but so few are user interfaces. The most famous is NewsMap by Marcos Weskamp, a navigation tool for news feed by google. Another good example come from RoomForMilk developed by NeuroFuzzy whom also did release the source code. Carl Tashian has mocked up a treemapped interface to visualize and navigate through pictures. If I do miss something neat, please let me know. [...]

By: Fabio

Fabio — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:46:03 +0000

Really smart algorithm! I will try to port it in as3…
Thanx

By: Marcus

Marcus — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 18:47:50 +0000

We will integrate it soon on our Mallorca Network Project. Thanks for that nice piece of code.

By: geoff

geoff — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 02:49:48 +0000

Tom, I don't recall the name of the algorithm, but the source is posted here if you want to play with it.

By: Tom in Cala Dor Palma de Mallorca

Tom in Cala Dor Palma de Mallorca — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 11:15:52 +0000

Very interesting application of a tree map. It’s a nice approach to using treemaps to display a network of information nodes rather than just a tree. However, having the word in the treemap is a little confusing. I would prefer the word to be the title at the top of the treemap and not included (so the treemap represents topics which are related to the selected topic). A breadcrumb trail at the top so you can see where you’ve been would be nice too.

I like the aspect ratio you got from the algorithm. Can I ask which algorithm you implemented?

By: The disappearing act at blog every brand new day

The disappearing act at blog every brand new day — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 10:27:20 +0000

[...] I stumbled across neurofuzzy. There are some interesting concept regarding the whole movement of social web and information architecture. It’s nothing new, but treemap has always intrigued me as a different way of delivering information [...]

By: geoff

geoff — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 05:01:41 +0000

Thanks. To be honest, I’m not sure, but I think it’s the pivot-by-middle algorithm, invented by Ben Schneiderman. The only difference is that I am cheating by doing a sort by size on the list before I run the algorithm on it. So, the bigger things end up at the top left, and the smallest at the bottom right. Professor Schneiderman was more concerned about retaining the natural order of the list, so methinks that made his task harder.

Another thing I didn’t mention, is that you can flip the aspect ratios depending on whether you start by splitting the map horizontally or vertically. For instance, my map is already very horizontal, and if my first slice is also horizontal, all of my subnodes will end up being very wide, which is good for text. I ended up going the other way because I thought the more square nodes were easier to see. Also, it reminded me of a Japanese Tatami room. : )

The result also seems to vary greatly depending on the number of items in your list. If you have 64 items, that’s 2 to the seventh power, so you’ll be going 7 slices deep before you start rendering actual nodes.

By: Trevor Lohrbeer

Trevor Lohrbeer — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 01:41:52 +0000

I just found the algorithm you used on your post from the 21st. It’s a wonderful algorithm. Do you have a name for it? I’m assuming you invented it, since I haven’t seen that algorithm used anywhere else before. I’d like to use it in our treemap software as an alternative to the squarified and strip layouts.