Evaluating Lossiness and Fidelity in Visualization

We describe an approach to measure visualization fidelity for encoding of data to visual attributes based on the number of unique levels that can be perceived; and a summarization across multiple attributes to compare relative lossiness across visualization alternatives. These metrics can be assessed at design time in order to compare the lossiness of different visualizations to aid in the selection between design alternatives. Examples are provided showing the application of these metrics to two different visualization design scenarios. Limitations and dependencies are noted along with recommendations for other metrics that can be used in conjunction with fidelity and lossiness to gauge effectiveness at design-time. © (2015) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only