Figure 1. harry Beck’s map of the London underground from 1933. Beck straightened the lines and more evenly spaced the stops to visually emphasize the sequence of stops along each line.

communicative intent of visualiza-
tions by carefully applying principles
of good design. These principles ex-
plain how visual techniques can be
used to either emphasize important
information or de-emphasize irrel-
evant details; for example, the most
important information in a subway
map is the sequence of stops along
each line and the transfer stops that
allow riders to change lines. Most sub-
way passengers do not need to know
the true geographic path of each line.
Based on this insight, map designer
Harry Beck redesigned the map of the
London Underground in 1933 using
two main principles: straightening
the subway lines and evenly spacing
the stops to visually emphasize the
sequence of stops and transfer points
(see Figure 1).

Figure 2. hand-designed cutaway and exploded-view illustrations (left) design the cuts and explosions to emphasize the shape of the missing geometry and spatial relationships among parts. our system incorporates such principles to generate interactive cutaway and exploded-view illustrations (middle, right).

FIGure 1. harry beck © tFl FroM the london transPort MuseuM collectIon FIGure 2. (leFt) stePhen bIesty © dorlInG kIndersley; (rIGht) lIFeart IMaGes