Document visualization: an overview of current research

As the number of sources and quantity of document information explodes, efficient and intuitive visualization tools are desperately needed to assist users in understanding the contents and features of a document, while discovering hidden information. This overview introduces fundamental concepts of and designs for document visualization, a number of representative methods in the field, and challenges as well as promising directions of future development. The focus is on explaining the rationale and characteristics of representative document visualization methods for each category. A discussion of the limitations of our classification and a comparison of reviewed methods are presented at the end. This overview also aims to point out theoretical and practical challenges in document visualization. (C) 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.