Information Visualization for the Construction Industry

The chapter introduces the topic by contextualizing, historically and conceptually, the use of visual properties to convey data and information for the built environment. It presents how design affects the visualization process, highlighting the authorial choices that influence how readers perceives information, showing why visualizations are not the result of a mechanical process of data encoding, but rather the outcome of an authorial process of representation. This is done by presenting the elements composing a visualization: the visual variables, the layout elements, and contextual information. Visual variables can be seen as “construction blocks” used to encode data dimensions, and strengths and weaknesses of their usage are exposed. The chapter then discusses visual models as “blueprints” featuring specific mappings of data onto visual variables, presenting a selection of useful ones and highlighting their context of use as well as issues in their usage. Finally, it is highlighted the relevance of contextual elements (such as titles, legends, and annotations) in the process of encoding/decoding of information and their role in providing readers the implicit knowledge needed to understand the subject and to get insights from the visualizations.