Dimension Reduction and Clustering for Interactive Visual Analytics

When exploring large, high-dimensional datasets, analysts often utilize two techniques for reducing the data to make exploration more tractable. The first technique, dimension reduction, reduces the high-dimensional dataset into a low-dimensional space while preserving high-dimensional structures. The second, clustering, groups similar observations while simultaneously separating dissimilar observations. Existing work presents a number of systems and approaches that utilize these techniques; however, these techniques can cooperate or conflict in unexpected ways.

The core contribution of this work is the systematic examination of the design space at the intersection of dimension reduction and clustering when building intelligent, interactive tools in visual analytics. I survey existing techniques for dimension reduction and clustering algorithms in visual analytics tools, and I explore the design space for creating projections and interactions that include dimension reduction and clustering algorithms in the same visual interface. Further, I implement and evaluate three prototype tools that implement specific points within this design space. Finally, I run a cognitive study to understand how analysts perform dimension reduction (spatialization) and clustering (grouping) operations. Contributions of this work include surveys of existing techniques, three interactive tools and usage cases demonstrating their utility, design decisions for implementing future tools, and a presentation of complex human organizational behaviors.