The eye is the receptor of the outside stimulus, but it transmits the information into the brain and it’s only there that the images form and we got them in our heads. That is why we understand things better if we have a visual contact with them. Abstract things are just harder to digest because we cannot picture them right in our heads. So, even when you talk about abstract things it helps a great deal to draw the main phases of the process or make a graphical representation. So if I tell you the word “apple” and you don’t know what that is you can imagine everything or nothing, but if I show you a real apple or the picture of an apple you immediately associate the two notions. Well, that is why people use charts and maps: to illustrate their points better and to have a representation of abstract things and processes.
Some guys from the University of Innsbruck, Austria, under the direct guidance and supervision of professor Thomas Fahringer, elaborated a set of charts and visualization diagrams, one of which was XML Event Chart. This started as a project with the students, but developed in a very nice manner in an useful software application. All these charts are based on Java programming language, so if you want to use one of them and make it functional, make sure you have Java installed on your computer.
XML Event Chart illustrates pairs of values and represents them on a chart with X/Y axes. All the values represented here are real numbers and the nodes can be hidden if you don’t want them to be shown. This charts is a representation of events that occurred at a certain point in time, where the time frame is represented by the X axis and the events on the Y axis. These events can be singular and in this case you will see them as isolated dots on the graphic or they can be connected to each other – in which case the dots will be linked by lines to each other – meaning the events that are connected will be represented by dots on the chart, also connected by colored lines.
You can then interpret the charts if you want to have a further analysis, all based on the timeframe when the events happened.If you are at least curious about this software application, you can find it by accessing University of Innsbruck web site where you can download it for free if you are interested in getting more detailed information.
