DataQuilt: Extracting Visual Elements from Images to Craft Pictorial Visualizations

Figure 1. Examples of creations realized with DataQuilt, a new interactive authoring tool that allows authors to borrow visual and stylistic elements from raster images and re-purpose them to create custom, pictorial visualizations. Left: a scatterplot of famous paintings by Klimt, showing the date of creation (x-axis) against how much it was sold for in auction (y-axis). Each data point is a spiral-shaped glyph whose texture is mapped to the painting it represents, whereas the Tree of Life painting is used as a decorative background. Middle: a bar chart representing the distance from the sun for the planets of our solar system. Each data point is represented by a space rocket, whose exhaust flames are stretched according to the underlying data. Decorative glyphs (sun, planets) are used for further information and visual appeal. Right: A personal visualization depicting one's coffee intake over a week. The type of coffee (espresso, latte, etc.) is represented by different coffee cups, all extracted from photographs. The orientation of the handle represents the time, whereas size is proportional to the drink size and horizontal position corresponds to the day of the week.