From Success Stories in Scientific Visualization Wiki
Why is my disk full? This question haunts many of us. SequoiaView is a tool that provides visual answers. It uses the treemap method enhanced with shaded cushions. The image is subdivided into rectangles, where each rectangle represents a folder or, on the lowest level, a file. The hierarchical cushions help to show the hierarchical structure. The color and size of the smallest rectangles show the type and size of the file. For instance, the red rectangles in the upper left corner represent image files, the big purple rectangle a large archive, the area with small grey and red rectangles is the cache of an internet browser. Guided by the images, large files or large collections of files can be found, and the user can clean up his disk efficiently and easily. SequoiaView has been downloaded more than 450,000 times and distributed on many CD’s. Users have reported that its use saved them from buying a new hard disk. Also, it has led to a spin-off company, called MagnaView. The challenge is to extend these methods for the presentation of tabular data, ubiquitous in business and many other branches of our daily lives, such that viewers can, for instance, understand which products perform well or not for which reason, or to see which factors influence the scores of high school students.
J.J. van Wijk, F. van Ham, and H.M.M. van de Wetering, "Rendering hierarchical data," Comm. ACM, Vol. 46, No. 9, pp. 257-263, September 2003.
