Enhanced dynamic queries via movable filters

Traditional database query systems allow users to construct complicated database queries from specialized database language primitives. While powerful and expressive, such systems are not easy to use, especially for browsing or exploring the data. Information visualization systems address this problem by providing graphical presentations of the data and direct manipulation tools for exploring the data. Recent work in this area has reported the value of dynamic queries coupled with two-dimensional data representations for progressive refinement of user queries. However, the queries generated by these systems are limited to conjunctions of global ranges of parameter values. In this paper, we extend dynamic queries by encoding each operand of the query as a Magic Lens filter. Compound queries can be constructed by overlapping the lenses. Each lens includes a slider and a set of buttons to control the value of the filter function and to define the compostion operation generated by overlapping the lenses. We demonstrate a system that supports multiple simultaneous general real-valued queries on databases with incomplete data, while maintaining the simple visual interface of dynamic query systems.

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