3D Interactive visualization for inter-cell dependencies of spreadsheets

This paper proposes a new technique to visualize dependencies among cells in a spreadsheet. In this way, the system firstly visualizes a spreadsheet on a plane in three-dimensional space, and draws arcs between interrelated cells. By allowing a user to select an arbitrary cell and lift it up with direct manipulation, the system utilizes the third dimension to ameliorate visual occlusion of crossing arcs. As the user lifts a focused cell up, the interrelated cells are lifted up together; thus hidden dataflow networks can be visually intelligible interactively. Because spreadsheets are aimed at calculation itself rather than appearances of outputs, their mechanism is relatively invisible and not obvious for ordinary users. Our visualization helps such users to understand structures and mechanism of spreadsheets.