Data queries using data visualization techniques

Proposes a flexible and friendly user interface for data queries using data visualization. There are a variety of ways how computers help users search data, and query interfaces are expected to allow users to choose these ways according to their purposes. These ways are classified into two aspects, filtering and browsing. While filtering is a function which searches data on behalf of users, browsing is function which helps users to search data. In the proposed query interface, both browsing function and filtering function are integrated as follows. The browsing function consists of data visualizing and image zooming. With data visualizing, the original data can be transformed into representations from views, which helps users understand the data more easily. Then the image zooming function displays the visualized representation in various scale factors, which enables users to investigate the outline of the entire data or the detail of partial data. The filtering function is also enhanced by providing several ways of post-processing the filtered results. These include marking the results on the visualized representation as well as extracting them. We implemented an experimental system using the proposed query interface. The system shows that it works well as a post-processing unit to conventional data query interfaces, and it is powerful for flexible handling of the data which are roughly searched with the conventional query interfaces