METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR INTERACTIVE DATABASE QUERIES VIA MOVABLE VIEWING OPERATION REGIONS

An information visualization system which uses dynamic queries in combination with movable viewing operation regions (VORs) for searching of two dimensional databases. Boolean and real-valued queries are made by overlapping viewing operation regions which include filters to search for specific data in the database. The viewing operation regions include interactive interfaces such as sliders and/or buttons to control the value of the filter function and define a composition operation generated by overlapping the VORs. The system provides a graphical display of database values and direct manipulation tools for exploring relationships between the database.