A Task Taxonomy for Edge and Trail Bundling

2026-07-22

AI Summary

This study addresses the lack of a structured task taxonomy in existing research on edge and trajectory bundling, which hinders the evaluation of method generality and cross-approach comparisons. Through a systematic literature review of 102 papers, the work focuses on three visualization types—node-link diagrams, geographic trajectory sets, and parallel coordinates—and proposes a unified task classification framework grounded in the dimensions of “scope” and “action.” It introduces, for the first time, the duality of task enablement and disablement in bundling visualizations and establishes a standardized task matrix applicable across representation types. The contribution includes a curated corpus of 49 papers with explicit task descriptions and a reusable classification scheme, both publicly released on the OSF platform, thereby filling a critical gap in task modeling for this domain.

Abstract

Edge bundling reduces visual clutter by aggregating similar edges, yet practitioners lack a structured vocabulary for reasoning about the tasks that bundled visualizations support. Such a vocabulary is needed both to evaluate the general utility of bundling and to compare different bundling approaches. We address this gap by assembling a corpus of 102 papers, 49 of which contain explicit bundling tasks, spanning node-link diagrams, geographic trail sets, and parallel coordinate plots. From this corpus, we derive a task taxonomy organized as a matrix of scope (Element, Bundle, Global, Multi-view) crossed with action (Verify, Identify, Characterize, Quantify, Compare, Assess), instantiated across the three representation types. We show that bundling simultaneously enables tasks (bundle-level and global reasoning) and disables others (element-level precision), a duality not captured by existing task frameworks. Our coded corpus and taxonomy are released as supplemental material on OSF (osf.io/23r67).

Problem

• edge bundling
• task taxonomy
• visual clutter
• visualization tasks
• structured vocabulary

Innovation

• edge bundling
• task taxonomy
• visual clutter reduction
• visualization tasks
• comparative analysis