Skip to main content
Figure 6 | BMC Bioinformatics

Figure 6

From: Helium: visualization of large scale plant pedigrees

Figure 6

The Helium interface. Our visualization tool has been split into a number of distinct areas which are shown here. Our choice in using these coordinated multiple views is a common design choice in visualization interfaces [36]. The use of a high-level overview window (Figure 6A) and main view (Figure 6B) helps users maintain orientation and provides a filtering mechanism for a detailed local view (Figure 6C). This allows easier tracing of lineage whilst maintaining greater context with the main visualization window. A) Data selection and overview panel. This contains a high level overview of the entire pedigree and does not change (apart from node colouring and resizing) during a user’s interaction with the application. This is intended to be used as a reference point for large pedigrees. This panel also contains a set of tabbed panes that let a user select phenotypic or genotypic data to overlay as well as further information from our Germinate database. B) The main pedigree visualization panel is where most manipulation happens. Users can pan and zoom across this window. The nodes are hotspots both for selection using the mouse or by hovering additional information is displayed about both nodes and edges. C) The local view panel contains our local view of a selected line and offers tools to allow a user to define how many generations (forwards and backwards) they want to view. The local view removes much of the visual clutter associated with the main pedigree visualization and allows edges to be more easily tracked. D) The detail panel contains search functionality and overview statistics. This example shows colouring for the ordinal data type “Anthocyanin Colour” which is a DUS character.

Back to article page