FUZZSAM - visualization of fuzzy clustering results by modified Sammon mapping

Since in practical data mining problems high-dimensional data are clustered, the resulting clusters are high-dimensional geometrical objects, which are difficult to analyze and interpret. Cluster validity measures try to solve this problem by providing a single numerical value. As a low dimensional graphical representation of the clusters could be much more informative than such a single value, this paper proposes a new tool for the visualization of fuzzy clustering results. By using the basic properties of fuzzy clustering algorithms, this new tool maps the cluster centers and the data such that the distances between the clusters and the data-points are preserved. During the iterative mapping process, the algorithm uses the membership values of the data and minimizes an objective function similar to the original clustering algorithm. Comparing to the original Sammon mapping not only reliable cluster shapes are obtained but the numerical complexity of the algorithm is also drastically reduced. The algorithm has been applied to several data sets and the numerical results show performance superior to principal component analysis and the classical Sammon mapping based projection. The examples demonstrate that proposed FUZZSAMM algorithm is a useful tool in user-guided clustering.