Hierarchical clustering for boxplot variables

Boxplots are well-known exploratory charts used to extract meaningful information from batches of data at a glance. Their strength lies in their ability to summarize data retaining the key information, which also is a desirable property of symbolic variables. In this paper, boxplots are presented as a new kind of symbolic variable. In addition, two different approaches to measure distances between boxplot variables are proposed. The usefulness of these distances is illustrated by means of a hierarchical clustering of boxplot data.