GPU Based Methods for Interactive Information Visualization of Big Data

Interactive visual analysis has been a key component of gaining insights in information visualization area. However, the amount of data has increased exponentially in the past few years. Existing information visualization techniques lack scalability to deal with big data, such as graphs with millions of nodes, or millions of multidimensional data records.

Recently, the remarkable development of Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) makes GPU useful for general-purpose computation. Researchers have proposed GPU based solutions for visualizing big data in graphics and scientific visualization areas. However, GPU based big data solutions in information visualization area are not well investigated.

In this thesis, I concentrate on the visualization of big data in information visualization area. More specifically, I focus on visual exploration of large graphs and multidimensional datasets based on the GPU technology. My work demonstrates that GPU based methods are useful for sensemaking of big data in information visualization area.