Density control through random sampling: an architectural perspective

Information visualisation systems often have to cope with presenting large amounts of data. In this paper we look at the problem of reducing the display density through the use of random sampling. We review some of the uses of sampling and examine density reduction techniques currently used in visualisation. We then look at a proposed novel visualisation that utilises sampling and discuss many issues that arise. Furthermore, we propose the ζDB sampling database architecture and demonstrate how this can be used to enhance current visualisation applications. Finally, we describe the architecture of a sampling aware application and illustrate its advantages.