Category Archives: texture

Texture and Pattern in Data Visualization

Posted on September 6, 2025 by richardbrath

The use of pattern in data visualization is under explored. A recent preprint by He et al. presents a design system based on lattices, glyphs and visual attributes. An incredibly wide range of patterns are possible, such as examples of radial patterns, non-linear lattices, and text-based patterns.
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Posted in 3D visualization, Data Visualization, Font Visualization, Pattern, texture | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Tint bands on textures, Pixar, and data visualizations

Posted on July 1, 2025 by richardbrath

Textures and tint bands can aid conveying useful information in data visualizations. Pixar’s Elio is another unfortunate original movie under-performing at the box office, while sequels continue to soar. Using textures and tint-bands, I also bring in reviewers ratings and plot summaries into the analysis.
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Posted in Data Visualization, texture, Thematic Map | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Maps Leaking Typography into Visualization

Posted on May 29, 2022 by richardbrath

I enjoy typography and cartography. Cartographic labels show more than just the name of the place, such as using font weight to indicate population in a town, or spacing to indicate the extents of a mountain range (previous post). It … Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, Isotype, Line Chart, texture, Thematic Map | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Visualizing with Texture: Lessons from Puzzles

Posted on January 30, 2022 by richardbrath

Over the holidays, we put out a couple jigsaw puzzles, to solve collaboratively or otherwise take a break from holiday mayhem. These are big puzzles, we did a 2000 piece cartoon puzzle and a 1000 piece photograph puzzle. With such … Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, Search, Shape Visualization, texture, Visual Attributes | Leave a comment

Lyrics as Tiles: Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy coded with Color and Texture

Posted on December 11, 2021 by richardbrath

Song lyrics depend heavily on rhythm, syllables and rhyme (in some songs such as pop songs). Some poetry visualizations add white space between words and lines, which can then be filled with various visualization techniques, such as forming links between … Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, Font Visualization, SparkWord, Text Skimming, Text Visualization, texture | 2 Comments

Dashed and patterned lines for visualization (aka 1D texture)

Posted on May 27, 2021 by richardbrath

Bertin and Texture Jacques Bertin discusses texture in visualization, in his landmark book Semiology of Graphics (1967 original French edition, 1983 English translation). Much of modern visualization theory and implementation hinges on Bertin’s framework, including the notion of visual attributes, … Continue reading →

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