Modelling the Semantics for Model-Driven Interactive Visualizations

Visualization of complex information becomes increasingly important in the era of digitalization to convey information in a human readable way and support decision making. Although many visualization tools are available, they are often treated as black boxes and inflexible in customizing visualization and supporting the user in navigating through data and different types of visualizations. This paper presents the semantics of a domain specific modelling language for highly interactive visualizations called VizDSL. VizDSL allows the user to model the navigation on a conceptual level. The semantics are specified by mapping VizDSL concepts to Place Chart Nets which can be used for model validation, simulation and automated tool creation. The mappings are platform independent and can be used by a developer to implement the language.