Overview plus detail

Overview + detail is a basic principle of Information Visualization that show the details of an information space together with an overview of the entire information space. In this way the reader of the representation don't loose the context where the detail is focusing on.

For example, this images reports the overview of a geographic area, and the detail window that shows a small part of the larger one.

Zooming and Panning

In the previous picture, the detail window hides the overview window. The following picture avoid this problem, and introduce two interesting features: the zooming and panning:

Zooming is the increasing magnification of a decreasing (or increasing) fraction of a two-dimensional image.
Panning is the smooth movement of a viewing frame over a two-dimensional image of greater size.

Magnifying lenses

This is another exaple where the overview + detail principle is applied.

Magic lenses

Magic Lenses are windows which know about what’s below them, and display data accordingly to that

Info lenses

Info Lenses are windows which know about what’s below them, and display data accordingly to that

Document lenses