Data Visualisation: Challenges in India

Image: Explorations to understand different types of data visualisations. Classification and Categorisation of data representation types using a bar chart metaphor.

The paper quoted below was prepared in response to an invitiaton from an Indian architectural magazine for commentaries on digital design and their impact in the classrooms at NID. This invitation gave us the opportunity to reflect and share the assignments and approaches that we had developed into a course for Information Design students at NID, first at the Paldi campus and later at the new campus at Gandhinagar for the students of New Media Design (NMD), Software User Interaction Design(SUID) and Information and Digital Design (IDD). Two of these disciplines do not exist now since the Institute has decided to relocate these courses to the newer campus in Bangalore and in the process the normanclature too has undergone a change. The new discipline is now called Information & Interface Design (IID). Bangalore campus also hosts two other disciplines since the last year called Design for Digital Experience (DDE) and Design for Retail Experience (DRE).

This course is discussed at a blog site that was set up by the teachers to be used by faculty and students and it is called Visible Information India. Just like the other blog that is used to document our courses in a contemporaneous manner, the Design Concepts and Concerns, this one too is used to report the class explorations as they happen during the semester. The course in Data Visualisation is inspired by the books and work of Edward Tufee and Richard Saul Wurman and it draws on the work of many web based initiatives that have followed the lead provided by these thought leaders.

Image: Classification and Categorisation of data representation types using a cityscape as metaphor.

Data Visualisation: Exploring Emerging Challenges and Opportinities in India
(Published in the architectural design magazine the “Indian Architect & Builder” in 2007.)

M P Ranjan & Rupesh Vyas
National Institute of Design
Ahmedabad

The Context and Intention
The area of visualization of data is growing in importance day by day. This phenomenon is impacted with the increasing use of networked data sources and a massive growth in the channels for communication available to all professions. This massive dissemination as well as the growth in bandwidth and increased computing resources being available at the user end terminals is driving growth for such visual representations of data for various useful purposes of planning and decision making. Here the demand for such representations is coming from both the print media and the broadcast media and strategies are ready to explode in the Internet applications as well. We can see the coming of age of the second-generation Internet products which will offered as a result of demand for such representations and due to their affordability. Keeping these emerging opportunities in mind a team of teachers at NID decided to develop and offer a course in Data Visualisation which could address these emerging needs and develop a framework for imparting the knowledge and skills needed to plan, conceive and execute such visual representations across many domains of application. These would include financial data, statistical data, demographic data, remote sensing data

The areas of application will eventually cover all fields of human activity from medical images to scientific data analysis tools and in financial markets that have to support exploding data streams that are difficult to keep track of using traditional modeling and analysis tools. The human mind and our sensory mechanisms are far too overloaded by the bombardment of these data streams that we are compelled to look for new and improved ways to “See the Data” rather than just look at numbers. While plenty of data is now available through real time systems from widespread automated monitoring, making sense of this data is becoming increasingly difficult due to human limitations of perception, cognition and response action.

The fields of application extend from playful ones in the area of game design as well as to life critical applications such a monitoring traffic flows in the sky and trend mapping in financial and medical situations, and the need to make sense of what we can now see and record with our available and emerging technologies. Geographic data from satellites, surveillance data from security cameras, medical data from pathology labs, home monitoring devices and investment needs of individuals through home banking all provide opportunities for new levels of visualization given the tools available to all of us. The media too has its needs for professional data managers and visualisers in mapping and modeling expressive action sequences to make current events both interesting and comprehensible to both experts and public alike. Decision makers will look for coherent presentations with visualisations of management and planning strategies and time-line models in new and complex business settings where an investment decision can make or break a company. Maps, charts, diagrams, models, statistical graphs, are all examples of visualization types that we are familiar with in today’s media and representation systems. We are entering a new area of dynamic data displays with advanced animation and representation systems that will make the reception and delivery of data several notches up the value chain and those who do it well will be at a premium position in the competitive market place of tomorrow.

This course was invented four years ago in response to these anticipated needs of the emerging marketplace and a number of experimental assignments were devised to bring both the students and the teachers up to date about the whole area of data visualization and its emerging opportunities. The course was divided into a series of interlocking and sequential assignments in a group and individual mode to make it truly inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary in approach and delivery. A few of the topics and assignments are described:

Image: Classification and Categorisation of data representation types using a matrix model.

Data Categorisation and Modeling
Data Categorization was the task that the whole group was plunged into from the very first day of engagement. The discussions on the taxonomy of data and data visualization were followed up by a quick assignment of collection of interesting and significant examples of data visualization from the various graphics and scientific books in the NID library. Student teams were encouraged to search and supplement images and diagrams, maps and models from Internet based sources as well. Each of the groups was to try and organize the total data collected into a meaningful structure through a process of classification that would follow intuitive categories that made sense to each group respectively. They could coin terms if required and if required leave an empty slot for a missing image type that they predicted or knew existed, but did not have a prototype in hand for the assignment. They were then expected to build a composite model of their classification showing the similarities and differences between that data types that they had discovered and in this assignment they were asked to assign attributes and categories apriori and through a process of brain-storming and debate, and not to follow any one authority to justify their choices and classification.

Image: Field and library research to visual model. Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad as a case study.

Image: Understanding dynamic data using visual representations and models. Mitakhali roundabout in Ahmedabad.

Data Capture: Field to Models
Representing live data from the field was the topic of the next exploration. The students were required to explore different contexts and to conduct field work and visit sites to start capturing data from the field using many techniques of observation and recording. Different milieus and the locations selected included, A shopping mall in Ahmedabad, the major traffic turnabout of six roads in Ahmedabad and the Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram for Tourists and International visitors. The models were developed to suit anticipated future needs as well as match the data captured in the field from observations and recordings.

Image: Modelling village aspirations and development opportunities for use by local population as well as planners. Village Sahpur study proposal.

Last year we gave our students the task if selecting three small villages near the Gandhinagar campus and they were to visit the village, meet the people and try and understand their needs, aspirations and resources through direct field contact. The idea was to give them an advanced assignment in data visualisation which was complex and wicked in its form as well as structure. Based on their field research the team was required to visualise the information that was generated in a collaborative mode in one image map that could be used by the local people as well as the village administration for development oriented activities.
 This is village Shahpur on the banks of the Sabarmati River near Gandhinagar in Gujarat. The village was one of three that the teachers selected by looking at Google Earth and the selection was made based on both proximity to our Gandhinagar campus.

This kind of design assignment gives us many insights that could be used to solve real issues of information management on a massive scale in India which has to deal with real needs of as many as 6,50,000 villages that dot our landscape and not just the cities that are taking up all our attention today. This project was done with the students and teachers using the inspiration offered by Christopher Alexander in his great thesis, "Notes on the Synthesis of Form."

Image: BusinessWeek data on Indo-China industrial competitiveness as reinterpreted by different students. Each used their own point of focus and through contextual research arrived at a unique representation in the process of sense making.

Dynamic Data Visualisation from Statistical sources:
Numerous sources of stastical data provide us an opportunity to explore visual representation across many fields such as sport, economics, weather, transportation, communication and others. Students were requested to use the UNESCO data that is available from their “Institute of Statistics” data centre at their website link and examine and analyse the data from one selected predefined table for a hypothetical decision or design action. Similarly a report from the BusinessWeek on economic parameters of industry in India and China was taken up as an individual task and here the same data was showcased in different styles and intentions by the students which revealed the possibility of variety in interpretation and representation in design. This is critical in design differentiation when competing agencies are showing the same data using different editorial policies which is the case in the real world.

About the authors:
Prof M P Ranjan and Rupesh Vyas are members of the faculty at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar.

M.P. Ranjan
M. P. Ranjan is a senior member of the faculty of the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, India and Chair of the Task Force on GeoVisualization set up by the Government of India. Ranjan is highly respected in the design community as a person who has unique insights about wide range of opportunities and responsibilities that lay before designers. He has deep knowledge of design applications in high tech sector, at the same time he has pursued projects to explore potential of bamboo, and other appropriate materials. Ranjan continually explores cultural, ethical, technological, and social issues that pose intellectual challenges for the design community.
web: www.ranjanmp.in
blog: www.design-for-india.blogspot.com

Rupesh Vyas
Rupesh Vyas has ten years of experience in Communication Design education and professional projects. Before joining NID he was teaching at Faculty of Visual Communication, M. S. University of Baroda. He is post graduate in Visualization from the same University.

He has contributed significantly to some of the major consultancy project having National importance. He is taking a lead role in developing Information and Digital Design as emerging discipline at NID. He has represented NID in different national and international forums like ICOGRADA, in Japan and in Expert Forum of traffic guiding systems by International Institute for Information Design (IIID), Vienna, Austria. 
He has special interest in developing innovative ways of information, interactions and interfaces in Public spaces, Location Based Information systems and Dynamic Data Visualization.
web: www.nid.edu

Design and the Creative Economy: A Strategy for Development in India

Image 1: Variety of expressions of human form from the many village crafts of India
See more about these crafts in “Handmade in India”

Most people think the technology shapes our environment and objects in our lives, but few people in India would consider the possibility of this being far from the truth. While technology is indeed one of the drivers of giving shape to the objects in our lives, a far more potent force is culture that in most mature societies deeply influences how our objects and environments are shaped. The use of design in the production of meaning and in our constant striving to transcend the technology that we use to create these in the first place determines many qualities that we cherish as part of culture. The evidence of form giving seen in tribal societies and in the highly evolved and stable village forms that dot our landscape in India show us this deep influence of design and culture in the shaping of our lives and experiences and we can foresee that as our digital technologies develop and mature we will be increasingly using culture through the medium of design as a determinant of the form of our software and hardware interfaces just as we have been using it to shape our living spaces and artifacts that we have been using in our lives. We will therefore need to return to our roots and discover afresh the age old local solutions and in this process try to understand design at a new level of maturity. Design has been a core driver for the shaping of culture and we will need to redefine its role in then shaping our future and in forming and providing meaning to our future selves. In India are fortunate to have a living culture that has a continuity in its settlements and life processes going back over 5000 years of civilization and the manifestations of this long journey are visible all around the country, if we care to take a look.

This is a very different kind of design activity that we are talking about here and not the type promoted by the glitterati and the design-as-adjective-media, all dealing with “designer labels”, a creation of marketing strategists in search of gullible consumers. Today, the Economic Times in Ahmedabad had a front page story on Design with a capital “D”, of course, and with a lot of name dropping, well known brand names of cars, perfumes, clothes and lifestyle products, and that in my opinion is another kind of design, the kind that can only lead to global warming by fuelling the consumption culture, and certainly not what I am trying to advocate here. We need to understand design as it was always understood by the common man, a core human activity of thinking and doing, a process of inquiry in a search for insights that could help make an existing situation better in the future for ourselves and for the world. Design at this level is about sensitive and ethical human intentions shaped by thoughts and actions that are steeped with feeling in a process that can generate value for all stakeholders. At this level it is a driver of culture that is sustainable and beneficial to humans as well as the ecology of the planet.

Image 2: Data visualization of village economy in a class assignment at NID
See more about this assignment in the “Data Visualisation course”

India and the Indian village has been the subject of design study in the search of the discovery of the roots of the synthesis of form. Why the Indian village? Christopher Alexander in his masterful thesis called “Notes on the Synthesis of Form” used the generalized Indian village as his object of investigation using as many as 144 parameters that have helped organically shape the relationships that go to make up the structure and form of the typical Indian village. The Indian village was chosen since it is perhaps the only surviving form of settlement that has endured the 5000 year long evolutionary process in arriving at a mature and sustainable model for human settlements and which continues to stand as a living organic system today. This is a model which has been fortunately insulated from mass destruction and migratory pressures and stand as living evidence of forms that can represent the synthesis of forces that give shape to human intentions and designs. While flying from my base in Ahmedabad to Delhi and onwards to Guwahati I can see below the dots that are the villages of the great Gangetic plains below that Alexander studied in 1961, still living and being shaped by many of the forces that he helped describe in his analysis in search for a synthesis of form. The typical Indian village, is a living testimony of sustainability having survived 5000 years, even as we look at it through the haze of poverty and the coloured perceptions that our modern education has endowed on us. Urbanization is not the only option forward since we can innovate other options, only if we try.

Looking down at our village from the air and now by doing the same using Google Earth, we can all participate in the live analysis if we can see the forces acting on the ground as did Alexander in the course of his field study in the early sixties. He identified many forces, some technological no doubt but many are attitudes and belief systems as well as rules and laws that have a far greater influence on the shaping of the village than mere technology and the economic parameters that we hold in such high esteem when we consider the modern day artifacts and environments that are being rapidly thrown up by the technological society that we have built in the recent past.

We are now using an evolved definition of design which places it on a level that is at the very core of human explorations and innovation over the years. Design is about the insightful and sensitive use of human intentions through our opportunity seeking thoughts and actions to produce meaning and value for ourselves and for society as a whole. In this form it is a very potent force that helps shape culture and it is achieved through our manipulations of materials and in giving shape to our intentions at both the material and at the immaterial and intangible level of systems, services and spaces as well as our artifacts and our interfaces with technology products in the software and artifact space.

Design can bridge cultures with its core ability for the sensitive creation of value from channeling human intentions through informed thoughts and actions. Design helps a society connect all of human knowledge with its deeper sensibilities and aspirations and it was an integral part of social and economic action till recent times when it got divorced from daily life in the process of industrialization and mass production. Access to new technologies and the democratization of global communication promises to give new meaning to creative expressions in a two way process that we are now attempting to build into our efforts to use design and its related initiative.

Image 3: Systems model of Design and the many levels of engagement
See more about this model at my website “About Design Theory: Levels of Design”
Download the paper: Levels of Design Intervention - 200 kb pdf.

Design is a powerful integrator at the systems level while it may continue to be operative at multiple levels and work across multiple sectors, materials and fields of business and social life. Our conviction about its effectiveness stems from the experience of numerous development projects that we have had in India over the past fifty years of using design as a critical tool for economic and social development. Other countries too are veering towards this new view of design as a vehicle for culture and it is here that we are likely to see its true value for human development.

Image 4: Model of Design as Fire: Systems dynamics and the design effect
See more about this model at my website“About Design Theory: Metaphor of Fire”

Design as a core human activity evolved from its first appearance over two million years ago when per-humans used fire to ward off predators and provide a sense of security to the early users. From the use of fire to the use of materials and tools is a long journey that chronicles that evolution of design and separates it from the organized forms of both science and art, since it predates both these disciplines when seen at this very general level of engagement with human aspirations and actions. This very integral set of capabilities that were part of rural habitats got separated and differentiated into specialist activities both with the birth of formal education and the university systems as well as through the processes of industrialization and it is now seen as a profession in the periphery of business and social action. Now we have embarked on a journey that goes well beyond material and tools and it includes the creative shaping of ideas about society, politics and ethics just as we looked at function, form and aesthetics and in this new journey we see interesting possibilities for design to expand and embrace this expanding universe of action with growing influence in shaping all our lives.

Image 5: The design process integrated with business models
Download paper about this model from my website “About Design Theory: Iterative Design Process.”

We will need to build new models to understand this evolving profession and build both processes and platforms for education in order to embed these new capabilities in a more formal manner into the shaping of our culture in the days ahead. Some of these approaches are part of our experiments in teaching design to students at the schools in India where design has been largely neglected by both Government and industry for the past fifty years since independence. However the recent surge of interest due to globalization should not limit the scope of its application to just business and industry but make it accessible in its significant role as the core capability in shaping our culture in a rapidly changing world order.

Agriculture gave way to Industry and now we are heading towards a new wave of global change that is predicted to transform the way we choose to live and work in the information empowered world order. The dawning of the creative has been predicted by many and countries and cities are vying for creative talent in trying to make their policies more attractive for those with creative energy and this includes many kinds of design professionals and innovative occupations. Does this mean that all such change will take place in urban India and leave the great village devoid of any talent? I do not think so and nor do many of my colleagues in the design profession in India who have been experimenting and researching the great Indian village traditions in search for ways to take these durable traditions forward into the next epoch of change with sustainability. We only need to look at the numerous stories of small-scale entrepreneurship and the vast range of craft, performance and artistic skills that live in our villages today and juxtapose it with the potential that the information age provides all of us to have a two-way communication across the global village to realize that the old bazaar could be recreated anew to offer a platform for a new age economy that can sustain a new economy in new and imaginative ways.

Image 6: Profile of the emerging designer and those who will adopt design as a way forward in their own professions.
See more about this model at my website: “About Design Theory: Profile of the Designer.”
Download paper: Creating the Unknowable - 50 kb pdf
Download paper: Craftsmanship in Education – 160 kb doc

This is the creative economy and we need to look at design in a fresh perspective not just as a servant of industry and business but as an enabler of such creative enterprises that are driven by local talent and linked to value rich associations with carefully paired relationships that the community channels now provide across the world for those who have similar aspirations and interests. That such networks can be created with the use of local skills and resources can be easily be demonstrated in each sector and some of our young designers are already showing signs of this journey and we will need to harness the pointers that they are revealing to us through their work in the field. Music, art, performance, storytelling through cinema and theatre have all been made accessible to small scale producers, all of whom have the reach across the globe for their offerings. Similarly crafts producers too have the same reach for their wares that are valued for their unique offerings and their exclusive qualities, particularly if they are handmade with a high degree of understanding and empathy for the intended user. Rich texts are being co-produced by collaborators on the net and so is music and image banks and research, all of which point to new possibilities that are emerging that will eventually challenge industry and business in new and exciting ways. India needs to look at this transformation and try and integrate what it has preserved for centuries in the living village economies and then build the creative economy on the back of this great tradition to provide leadership across many spheres of activity in tourism, entertainment and life-styles that are sustainable and satisfying in a modern sense.

In order to succeed here we will need to build a policy framework that is sympathetic to the design process of exploration, experimentation, modeling and prototyping before rapid deployment and make the investments in infrastructure and people through appropriate education and an umbrella of supports that would help them realize this potential. This would then be a design led initiative that can usher in the creative economy and other countries too are looking at this possibility but India has a real advantage with a huge cultural resource that is alive and ready to be used. I will elaborate the application of design strategies to other fields in the days ahead and in each one we will need to nurture the creative force of innovation and help make situations and offerings better than they are today. Design can usher in the creative economy and we can make it happen right here in India.

The Design Concepts and Concerns course (DCC) had covered this theme earlier in the Foundation as well as in earlier PG batches. This year we are looking at the Creative Economy and its potential for India with the PG batches at Gandhinagar, Paldi as well as Bangalore. I have set up a new blog for the DCC course which can be seen at this link and the theme for this year is the Creative Economy of the Future in the DCC course. The Gandhinagar batch is looking at the design opportunities in the area of Digital Design.

Handmade in India: A Handbook of the Crafts of India arrives from the publisher

Handmade in India: An encyclopedia of the handicrafts of India

Handmade in India
Edited by Aditi Ranjan and M.P. Ranjan
576 pages, 3500 colour photographs and 140 maps, 9.5 x 13.5” (240 x 340 mm), hc, October 2007, ISBN: 978-81-88204-57-1 (Mapin), Series ISBN: 978-81-88204-49-6 (Mapin), Copublished in association with COHANDS
Rs.3,950.00 / US$95.00
more about availability in October 2007
from the Mapin Publishers Pvt. Ltd. link here

Handmade in India, volume 1, is a tribute to the Indian craftsperson and is organized by the geographical distribution of the crafts across all states and regions of the country. The Indian craftsperson has demonstrated an uncanny understanding of materials which is combined with a mastery of the tools, techniques and processes that have evolved over the centuries through social and cultural interactions, a tribute to the creative design abilities of the village society. The Eames India Report talks about a search for the values that is uniquely Indian and it is here that the study of Indian crafts will help inform current and future actions in the continuous evolution of the economy and the form that it takes in shaping the culture of the land. Today this craft continuum constitutes an enormous resource that can be harnessed for the future development of our society, particularly as the backbone of a creative economy that is enabled by the embedded knowledge in the traditional wisdom of the sector as well as the digital technologies that help connect this ancient skill to new and future opportunities for the craftspersons across India. We will need to make this enormous knowledge base accessible to planners, business and the rural and urban craftsmen as well as connect these to new local and global opportunities for these skills and resources to be reinterpreted in new and imaginative ways.


Sample page showing a typical craft and associated images, text and keywords

This we believe is the foundation of the creative economy of the future in a massively web enabled world and easy access in both directions which promises to link the craftsmen to new markets across the world. For this to happen there are several steps involved and the book will be the first in offering insights and data on this vast resource as well as be a vehicle that can provide a platform and a structure to enhance this knowledge using the new digital networks and tools of access and interaction that it provides provided the required investments are made in infrastructure and training to realize the inherent potential. It is our intention that the information as well as the framework of situated keywords provided in this book will help all concerned with the promotion, development and use of the crafts of India would be empowered to build a sustainable network of live information. This we believe will help our craftsmen re-connect with world markets, just as they had been doing for centuries in their own village and in their trade route networks of the past, and now the world can be their new village economy, if they are enabled and empowered to change to meet these new circumstances with access to information that is both live and relevant.

This volume, “Handmade in India”, is the first of three that are planned and it provides a geographic organization of craft distribution across the length and breadth of the country and shows how craft permeates even the remotest corner of India. In this introductory note we have tried to summarize the enormity of craft variety and the significant role that it plays in the day-to-day lives of both rural and urban people. These linked posts below cover several frequently asked questions about this massive work that has gone on for many years at NID and now we are in a position to make it available to a wider audience for the benefit of informed decisions relating to the development initiatives associated with these crafts in India.

As editors of this work situated as design teachers at India’s National Institute of Design, we would like to celebrate the arrival of the first advance copy from the Mapin Publishers and it is a confirmation of more that 40 years of efforts by faculty and students of this great Institute who have sustained their interest in the crafts of India as a design and development resource for the country when few other organizations showed real interest in what was seen as a glory of the past. That it is a living resource as well as a resource for the future is something that we would strongly advocate and call for sustained investments from both government and industry to ensure its continuity towards a the realization of its future potential as a driver for the creative economy for the estimated six million crafts persons who have kept this knowledge alive through their actions and traditional methods of transmission which we are today trying to capture in an explicit format between the covers of a book. We have had thinkers from the past comparing the crafts of India with the oceans of the world, vast and impossible to put into a bottle of any kind. We are very aware that it is only the whole earth and its gravity that can act as an adequate container for the oceans and water bodies of our planets ecology. Our vast and varied crafts traditions and practices can be compared to this vast ocean and it is only the tips of this enormous ice-berg that are visible in the book and we hope that the web and the digital networks that built in the subsequently phases can support and can play the role of making the rest of the hidden volume visible and accessible in the days ahead. Our attempt has been to provide a framework on which this can be built in the days ahead.

It is a pleasure to hold the advance copy in hand and see the realization of a dream and the fructification of the efforts of several generations of NID designers as well as a large team of contributors who have made this book possible, thank you all. We would like to thank our sponsors the Development Commissioner of Handicrafts, Government of India, the COHANDS, Mapin Publishers as well as our Institute, the National Institute of Design for having provided us the opportunity of producing this work and we look forward to an active period of cooperation in taking this forward to the next stages through volumes two, three and beyond.

Aditi Ranjan & M P Ranjan
Editors: Handmade in India
7 August 2007 from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India

See a note on the Information Architecture used for the book to enable informed web searches on each craft that is covered here in the book.

Visible Information India: A new blog on Data Visualisation

Data Visualisation and Information modelling is emerging as an important field of design action and in the age of media and computer based interaction the opportunity to make data visible is both an art as well as a science that needs to be used in all walks of life as well as in the core offerings from business and governments alike. This blog called "Visible Information India" is therefore a platform that will be used by students in the Data Visualisation class at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar to share and showcase their ongoing efforts with their teachers as well as with others interested in taking this new activity to a higher level of professionalism. This course was created three years ago with the first batch of students from the new digital design disciplines at NID and it has been found useful for other groups as well as by the industry representatives who had come for the placement activity at the end of these programmes. This year, the two week course is conducted by Prof. M P Ranjan and Rupesh Vyas at the Gandhinagar campus for students of the Information and Digital Design discipline (IDD). The first assignment given to the students is the analysis of modelling data flows on the Google Analytics service as they are applied to the design of institutional and personal websites and we hope to see this work documented and shared in near real time during the conduct of this course at NID.
"Visible Information India" blog on Data Visualisation


Experimental assignment done last year on mapping village resources for use by local people in a village near Gandhinagar.

Through this platform of, "Visible Information India" blog, the faculty will also share their insights and comments on the emerging field as well as post book reviews and discussions on current developments that may be pertinent to the subject at hand, making critical and useful information visible for and in India. This resource will cover design approaches for the creation of maps, models and diagrams as well as dynamic data representations of a number of domains such as financial, medical and decision support, to mention only a few.