StoryFlow: Tracking the Evolution of Stories

• Published in: IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics Vol. 19; no. 12; pp. 2436 - 2445
• Main Authors: Liu, Shixia, Wu, Yingcai, Wei, Enxun, Liu, Mengchen, Liu, Yang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.12.2013; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Algorithms; Bundling; Computer Graphics; Evolution; Handles; Heuristic algorithms; Image Enhancement - methods; Information Dissemination - methods; Information Storage and Retrieval - methods; Layout; level-of-detail; Motion pictures; Narration; Optimization; Real time; Software; story-telling visualization; Storylines; Straightening; Studies; Tracking; user interactions; User-Computer Interface; Visualization; White spaces
• ISSN: 1077-2626; 1941-0506
• DOI: 10.1109/TVCG.2013.196

Storyline visualizations, which are useful in many applications, aim to illustrate the dynamic relationships between entities in a story. However, the growing complexity and scalability of stories pose great challenges for existing approaches. In this paper, we propose an efficient optimization approach to generating an aesthetically appealing storyline visualization, which effectively handles the hierarchical relationships between entities over time. The approach formulates the storyline layout as a novel hybrid optimization approach that combines discrete and continuous optimization. The discrete method generates an initial layout through the ordering and alignment of entities, and the continuous method optimizes the initial layout to produce the optimal one. The efficient approach makes real-time interactions (e.g., bundling and straightening) possible, thus enabling users to better understand and track how the story evolves. Experiments and case studies are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and usefulness of the optimization approach.