@TechReport{Oberbichler2007, author = {Oberbichler, Alexander and Böszörmenyi, Laszlo}, institution = {Institute of Information Technology ({ITEC}), Klagenfurt University}, title = {Animated visualization in 4D UI}, year = {2007}, address = {Klagenfurt, Austria}, month = apr, number = {TR/ITEC/07/2.02.}, abstract = {The visualization of temporal information should not be seen as a special case. A lot of applications take already advantage of the time factor (e.g. capturing user events) but nearly all of them implement this feature completely proprietary. So why do we not embed the time as a ”first class citizen” in today’s operating systems that every application can use time based operations in an unified way. Such an invention would not only improve and standardize the capturing of temporal events but it would be of benefit for a temporal visualization system too. Within a 3D visualization space and a global time axis we introduce a printf4D() 1 method. With this method it is possible to display images, videos, text strings or any other kinds of information in an automatically animated way. As a first proposal we demonstrate this function in a ”flow of information” metaphor where information-objects are not displayed all at once but in a flowing manner over a certain period of time. Additionally we will show that printf4D() is not limited to temporal data. It can be extended automatically to any kind of static information.}, language = {EN}, pages = {12} }