Visualisation of a multidimensional point cloud as a 3D swarm of avatars

The article presents an innovative approach to the visualisation of multidimensional data, using icons inspired by Chernoff faces. The approach merges classical projection techniques with the assignment of particular data dimensions to mimic features, capitalizing on the natural ability of the human brain to interpret facial expressions. The technique is implemented as a plugin to the dpVision open-source image handling platform. The plugin allows the data to be interactively explored in the form of a swarm of "totems" whose position in hyperspace as well as facial features represent various aspects of the data. Sample visualisations, based on synthetic test data as well as the vinhoverde 15-dimensional database on Portuguese wines, confirm the usefulness of our approach to the analysis of complex data structures.