SpatialRugs: Enhancing spatial awareness of movement in dense pixel visualizations

Abstract

Compact visual summaries of spatio-temporal movement data often strive to express accurate positions of movers. We present SpatialRugs, a technique to enhance the spatial awareness of movements in dense pixel visualizations. SpatialRugs apply 2D colormaps to visualize location mapped to a juxtaposed display. We explore the effect of various colormaps discussing perceptual limitations and introduce a custom color-smoothing method to mitigate distorted patterns of collective movement behavior.