Mobile Phone Usage Cycles: A Torus Topology for Spherical Visualisation

In this paper we present a novel technique for visualising cyclical data on a spherical display. We developed a visualisation that represents axes such as weekly and hourly cycles with an interaction that is topologically toroidal but visually spherical. This is used to develop a natural, continuous interaction for exploring temporal patterns on a spherical display. We describe our implementation of this visualisation, explore a practical data set that captures longitudinal mobile phone usage [4], and discuss the advantages of spherical visualisation.