Using indexed-sequential geometric glyphs to explore visual patterns

Abstract

This paper presents a visualization tool called PolygonR&D for exploring visual tiling patterns. To facilitate the exploration process, PolygonR&D uses dynamically-generated, interactive geometric glyph visualizations that intermediate reasoning between the sequential textual code and the parallel visual structure of the tilings. Sequential textual code generates indexed-sequential geometric glyphs. Not only does each glyph represent one procedure in the sequential code, but also a constituent element of the visual pattern. Users can reason with a sequence of glyphs to explore how tiling patterns are constructed. Alternatively, they can interact with glyphs to semantically unpack them. Glyphs also contain symbolic referents to other glyphs helping users see how all procedures work together to generate a tiling pattern. Experimenting with indexed-sequential glyphs in tools such as PolygonR&D can help us understand how to design interactive cognitive tools that support reciprocal reasoning between sentential and visual structures. © Springer-Verlag 2004.