Declarative Visualization

Library and application-based information visualization tools incur significant penalties that hinder the adoption of visualization as a technique in a variety of situations. Traditional library use necessitates familiarity with the data structures and control flows that are integral to tradi-tional programming, but not central to visualization. Additionally, many library based visualiza-tion tools do not explicitly address interaction issues, forcing programmers to fall back on lan-guage provided interaction metaphors instead. Task-specific visualization applications alleviate these issues, but limit users to pre-supplied visual arrangements and induce users to move data between applications as their needs change. We propose a declarative, domain-specific programming language approach to visualization tool construction. We believe this approach will simplify the process of custom visualization pro-gram creation, simplify integration with many tools and ease the modification of existing tools. Further, the conceptual model underlying this custom language can be explicitly constructed to handle both data and interaction components in a consistent manner. This proposal outlines the architecture for such a tool, exploring the technical requirements and challenges. Constructing this tool and model will expand the circumstances under which visualization techniques can be readily applied and extend the theoretical understanding of those techniques.