Critical design and realization aspects of glyph-based 3D data visualization

Glyphs are useful for the effective visualization of multi-variate data. They allow for easily relating multiple data attributes to each other in a coherent visualization approach. While the basic principle of glyph-based visualization has been known for a long time, scientific interest has recently increased focus on the question of how to achieve a clever and successful glyph design. Along this newer trend, we present a structured discussion of several critical design aspects of glyph-based visualization with a special focus on 3D data. For three consecutive steps of data mapping, glyph instantiation, and rendering, we identify a number of design considerations. We illustrate our discussion with a new glyph-based visualization of time-dependent 3D simulation data and demonstrate how effective results are achieved.