Click here to flash read.
Periodically occurring accumulations of events or measured values are present
in many time-dependent datasets and can be of interest for analyses. The
frequency of such periodic behavior is often not known in advance, making it
difficult to detect and tedious to explore. Automated analysis methods exist,
but can be too costly for smooth, interactive analysis. We propose a compact
visual representation that reveals periodicity by showing a phase histogram for
a given period length that can be used standalone or in combination with other
linked visualizations. Our approach supports guided, interactive analyses by
suggesting other period lengths to explore, which are ranked based on two
quality measures. We further describe how the phase can be mapped to visual
representations in other views to reveal periodicity there.
