The STARLIGHT information visualization system

Abstract

STARLIGHT is an example of a new class of information system expressly designed around visualization-oriented user-interface. Incorporating more traditional information storage and retrieval technologies into its design, the STARLIGHT system also enables the integrated use of multiple, concurrent visualization techniques to support comparison of content and interrelationship information levels of abstraction simultaneously. This powerful new form of information analysis eases cognitive workloads by providing a visual context for the information under study. Originally developed for intelligence analysis applications, the STARLIGHT software is intended to support the rapid, concurrent analysis of complex multimedia information, including structured and unstructured text, geographic information, and digital imagery. The system uses novel 3-D visualization techniques that interactively generate easily understandable representations of explicit and implicit relationships contained in information collections of various types. This paper describes the general theory behind our approach, and the design and features of a Windows NT-based operational system.