Hierarchical visualization of time-series data using switching linear dynamical systems

We propose a novel visualization algorithm for high-dimensional time-series data. In contrast to most visualization techniques, we do not assume consecutive data points to be independent. The basic model is a linear dynamical system which can be seen as a dynamic extension of a probabilistic principal component model. A further extension to a particular switching linear dynamical system allows a representation of complex data onto multiple and even a hierarchy of plots. Using sensible approximations based on expectation propagation, the projections can be performed in essentially the same order of complexity as their static counterpart. We apply our method on a real-world data set with sensor readings from a paper machine.