What functionality should a general InfoVis infrastructure provide?
Such a general infrastructure should be • portable – running on all main platforms; • open – source code and documentation available to the users; • expandable – easy to add new features; • efficient – includes efficient algorithms; • scalable – can be used on small and (very) large datasets; • cooperative – easy to combine with other tools, support for main non-native data formats; • CGI – can be used as CGI program on the web; • user friendly. Visualization tools are tightly connected with the corresponding analytical tools. Where to put a border? In Pajek, for example, we decided to provide the connections to R and SPSS for statistical analyses of data derived from networks. Also, we are not supporting in Pajek the high complexity algorithms applicable only to (very) small networks, but we provide file exchange with UCINET – a program that contains all these procedures. Another remark is that most efforts in visualization are still ‘paper’ (letter, A4) oriented. The general infrastr
