A model for smooth viewing and navigation of large 2D information spaces

Large 2D information spaces, such as maps, images, or abstract visualizations, require views at various level of detail: close ups to inspect details, overviews to maintain (literally) an overview. Users often change their view during a session. Smooth animations enable the user to maintain an overview during interactive viewing and to understand the context of separate views. We present a generic model to handle smooth image viewing. The core of the model is a metric on the effect of simultaneous zooming and panning, based on an estimate of the perceived velocity. Using this metric, solutions for various problems are derived, such as the optimal animation between two views, automatic zooming, and the parametrization of arbitrary camera paths. Optimal is defined here as smooth and efficient. Solutions are based on the shortest paths of a virtual camera, given the metric. The model has two free parameters: animation speed and zoom/pan trade off. A user experiment to find good values for these is described. Finally, it is shown how the model can be extended to deal also with rotation and nonuniform scaling.