Visual Analysis System for Search Trend Data

Abstract

A visual analysis system called STVAS is presented to help users explore and analyze data collected from search engines, which includes data collection and preprocessing, calculation of streamgraph, generation of streamlines and text placement, along with interactive analysis. It presents a visualization method that combines streamgraph and text to reveal search trends and hotspots. To guide the text placement within streamgraph, this system uses a novel layout algorithm with streamlines generated from the vector field inside the streamgraph. In addition, a set of interactions is offered to help user explore and analyze data on different levels. Quantitative evaluation of the visualization method is made on five blog datasets, and case studies on two real search datasets.The results demonstrate that this system can help users understand the evolving pattern of search engine data, discover the implicit search trends, and quickly grasp public opinions from the Internet.