What is Information Visualization?..."The use of computer-supported, interactive, visual representations of abstract data to amplify cognition."

2D is Better Than 3D... http://www.useit.com/alertbox/981115.html Most abstract information spaces work poorly in 3D because they are non-physical. If anything, they have at least a hundred dimensions, so visualizing an information space in 3D means throwing away 97 dimensions instead of 98: hardly a big enough improvement to justify the added interface complexity.


Scale and proportion are key concepts of visual representations.
http://www.infovis.net/E-zine/2004/num_145.htm Over the last few centuries many people have considered that the Phi number, better known as the divine proportion or the golden section is a standard for balance and beauty in regards to proportions. Phi is 1.618033988..., or the limit that the ratio between any two elements of the Fibonacci sequence tend to.

A related idea states that given the fractal nature of the world, information visualisation in fractal form could be closer to our natural way of perceiving the world, thus being a more advantageous one. "Structuralists consider, for example, that each and every representation is of an arbitrary-conventional nature, rejecting the possibility of sensorial, representation that can be understood without the need to learn a particular convention."(?)

THE NAUTILUS SHELL IS NOT A GOLDEN SECTION SPIRAL http://www.nexusjournal.com/Sharp_v4n1-pt04.html
Great Fibonacci sites http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fib.html
http://goldennumber.net/

Virtual tour of an "Invisible City"; http://www.ensmp.fr/~latour/virtual/index.html#