Abstract

In this paper we introduce a constraint-based language that has a visual syntax, and allows for the declarative specification of the display of data. Other features of the proposed language include: (1) simplicity and genericity of the basic constructs; (2) ability to specify a variety of displays (graphs, bar charts, pie charts, etc.); (3) compatibility with the object-oriented framework of the database language doodle. We provide the syntax and the semantics of the language, and examples of applications that demonstrate the expressiveness of our language. 1.1 Introduction Mappings between the data domain and the visual domain are commonly used for extracting information from the data by reasoning in the visual domain [3, 12]. For example, Venn diagrams are visual representations of abstract sets and of their inclusion relationships. Other diagrams are close to the concrete entities that they represent, such as transportation and communication networks. Bar charts, pie charts, and p...

Citations