Overview

Systems Visualization is a new field of visualization which integrates the four disciplines of narrative story telling

Storytelling

Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...

, visual metaphor

Metaphor

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

s & visual design, complex systems theory

Systems theory

Systems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems at all nesting levels in all fields of research...

, and knowledge & data representation through the use of ontologies. Systems visualization is notably different than scientific visualization. Scientific visualization focuses and emphasizes the representation of higher order data using primarily graphics and animation techniques. Systems visualization employs visual metaphors, story telling, systems theory using graphs and trees, and data representation using ontologies. Such features were not a part of scientific visualization. Unlike other visualization approaches such as data visualization

Data visualization

Data visualization is the study of the visual representation of data, meaning "information that has been abstracted in some schematic form, including attributes or variables for the units of information"....

, information visualization

Information visualization

Information visualization is the interdisciplinary study of "the visual representation of large-scale collections of non-numerical information, such as files and lines of code in software systems, library and bibliographic databases, networks of relations on the internet, and so forth".- Overview...

, flow visualization

Flow visualization

Flow visualization in fluid dynamics is used to make the flow patterns visible, in order to get a qualitative or quantitative information on them.- Overview :...

, scientific visualization

Scientific visualization

Scientific visualization is an interdisciplinary branch of science according to Friendly "primarily concerned with the visualization of three-dimensional phenomena , where the emphasis is on realistic renderings of volumes, surfaces, illumination sources, and so forth, perhaps...

 and network visualization

Graph drawing

Graph drawing is an area of mathematics and computer science combining methods from geometric graph theory and information visualization to derive two-dimensional depictions of graphs arising from applications such as social network analysis, cartography, and bioinformatics...

, which focus mainly on data representation, systems visualization seeks to provide new way to visualize complex systems of systems

System of systems

System of systems is a collection of task-oriented or dedicated systems that pool their resources and capabilities together to create a new, more complex system which offers more functionality and performance than simply the sum of the constituent systems...

 through this unique integrative approach. Systems visualization involves complex feedback processes not part of other visualization methodologies. This new field allows visualization of systems which are distributed and complex.

As a discipline, systems visualization and its principles were formalized by V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai

Shiva Ayyadurai

V. A. Shiva Ayyadurai is an American inventor, scientist, and Faculty Lecturer in Department of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.-Early Years & Education:...

 into a new course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

. Given the integrative nature of this field and dearth of tools, a hands-on approach is necessary to appreciate its multi-disciplinary components. Systems visualization tools such as Rivet, which are few in number, developed by Robert Bosch allows for visualization of complex systems.

Methods of systems visualization

In systems visualization, complex systems are visualized by the following four methods:

• Narrative story telling
  Storytelling
  Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...
  
  : This involves using either story boards such as comic strip
  Comic strip
  A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
  
  s flow, or a dramatic movie script
  Screenplay
  A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
  
   to describe the interconnections among various elements of the system.
• Visual metaphor
  Metaphor
  A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
  
  s and design: Here the key is to emotionally grab the viewer's attention using a powerful visual metaphor
  Metaphor
  A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
  
   following basic principles of visual design such as balance, contrast, focus and symmetry.

Systems theory

Systems theory

Systems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems at all nesting levels in all fields of research...

: Systems are interconnected using directed graphs and trees where one aims to minimize the visual overlap of interconnecting elements.

• Data representation using ontology: The complexity of systems requires a standardized set of terminology to describe links across data elements. An ontology supports this descriptive data representation.

Application

In system dynamics

System dynamics

System dynamics is an approach to understanding the behaviour of complex systems over time. It deals with internal feedback loops and time delays that affect the behaviour of the entire system. What makes using system dynamics different from other approaches to studying complex systems is the use...

, mathematical methods are developed to understand the governing properties across system components. For large scale systems of systems

System of systems

System of systems is a collection of task-oriented or dedicated systems that pool their resources and capabilities together to create a new, more complex system which offers more functionality and performance than simply the sum of the constituent systems...

, the interconnections and emergent properties can be better understood if displayed in a meaningful form. Therefore, systems visualization is being recognized as an important and necessary component to visually understand complex system

Complex system

A complex system is a system composed of interconnected parts that as a whole exhibit one or more properties not obvious from the properties of the individual parts....

s, in addition to the computational and experimental approaches.