3D Visualization of Hierarchical Clustered Web Search Results

The immaturity of semantic search engines has initiated researchers to apply various novel postprocessing techniques on traditional search engine results among which clustering routines are most conspicuous. While many of these routines are focused on hierarchical clustering, little has been done toward an effective visualization of such data. Due to the richness of information observed in 3D in comparison with 2D (because of its abundant visual cues), we have proposed an intuitive 3D metaphor for the visualization of hierarchical clustered results. Our metaphor is based on fractal trees which are usually constructed by linear recursive algorithms traversing node-link hierarchies. The search results of different hierarchical clustering algorithms shall be visualized as either single-tree or forest metaphors which are user´s customizable alternatives in our implemented prototype. In the forest depiction, our approach is even applicable to flat clustered results.