Using Polymorphic Glyphs to Support the Visual Exploration of Hierarchical Spatio-Temporal Data

Studying spatio-temporal data is essential to understand the processes of the real world. However, the design of effective visualizations to explore spatio-temporal data is not a straightforward task due to the inherent multidimensional aspects of the data. In this paper, we explore the usage of polymorphous glyphs (i.e. glyphs that change shapes according to the context) to support the exploration of multiple hierarchical levels and dimensions of the data. We implemented our approach in the form of a web-based visualization interface that we demonstrate through a case study of the ISSA KG, which describes scientific publications in the field of agriculture, thus supporting domain experts on investigating where, when and how different crops are cultivated.