Investigative Visual Analysis of
Global Terrorism
Xiaoyu Wang UNC Charlotte
Erin Miller START Center, U. Maryland
Kathleen Smarick START Center, U Maryland
William Ribarsky UNC Charlotte
Remco Chang UNC Charlotte
1
2/21

Definition of Terrorism
 “The threatened or actual use of illegal force and
violence by a non-state actor to attain a political,
economic, religious or social goal through fear,
coercion or intimidation[1,2].”
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Definition of Terrorists
 Any non-state actor engaging in terrorism is
defined to be a terrorist in the Global Terrorism
Database (GTD).
1. LAFREE G., DUGAN L.: Introducing the global terrorism database. Terrorism and Political Violence 19, 2 (2007), 181–204.
2. NATIONAL CONSORTIUM FOR THE STUDY OF TERRORISM AND RESPONSES TO TERRORISM: Global terrorism database.
http://www.start.umd.edu/data/gtd/, 2007
3/21
4/21
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Terrorism activities throughout the world
between 1970-1997
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Contains over 60,000 incidents
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119 dimensions for recording the events
(weapons used, number of injuries, etc)
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Approximately 2,000 unique entities
5/21
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Understanding terrorism is a grand challenge
for the Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) and
the National Visual Analytics Consortium
(NVAC).

Other agencies such as DoD, STRATCOM, and
JIPOE are also interested in the area.
1. GUO D., LIAO K., MORGAN M.: Visualizing patterns in a global terrorism incident database. Environment and Planning B:
Planning and Design 34, 1 (2007), 767–784.
6/21
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Visual Analysis of Terrorism != Social Networks
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Social network on terrorism
 OntoVis by Shen, Ma, and Eliassi-Rad
 Social Action by Adam Perer and Schneiderman
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Geospatial approach
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Other Tools
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Guo, Liao, and Morgan from Penn State
GeoVista by Penn State
Improvise by Chris Weaver
Sandbox and GeoTime by Occulus
Why aren’t there more?
7/21
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Big Picture:
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Event-based investigative analysis
 Visually analyze the activities of entities

Trend comparison using dimensions
 Identify trends and patterns of events

Search-by-example of temporal patterns
 Look for similar behaviors
8/21
Dimensional
Relationships
(ParallelSets)
Entity Relationships
(Investigative Vis)
Entity Analysis
(Search By Example)
C. Ziemkiewicz, X. Wang, A. Godwin, W. Dou, R. Chang, R. Kosara, and W. Ribarsky. Global Terrorism Visualization. Poster
Presented at DHS University Network Summit, 2008
9/21
Dimensional
Relationships
(ParallelSets)
Entity Relationships
(Investigative Vis)
Entity Analysis
(Search By Example)
C. Ziemkiewicz, X. Wang, A. Godwin, W. Dou, R. Chang, R. Kosara, and W. Ribarsky. Global Terrorism Visualization. Poster
Presented at DHS University Network Summit, 2008
10/21
The 5 W’s
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Fundamental investigative concept:
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Where : a certain geo-location or region on map.
When : a spot or continues span along time line.
Who : individual entity or a group of entities
What : any physical tool or method.
Why : motivations or reasons.
Highly interactive exploratory tool
 Flexible entrance points.
 Swift updates in coordinated views.
 Details on demand
11/21
System Overview
WHO
WHAT
WHERE
Comparison and
Shoebox
WHEN
12/21
Where
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Designed to be easy and intuitive.
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Illustrates the activity patterns of entities.
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Multi-group selection helps in comparing
activities of different entities.
13/21
When
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Use of ThemeRiver to display categorical
information.
Understand groups’ temporal patterns and
trends over time.
14/21
Who
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Dual Roles:
 Selection of entities (“terrorist names” tab)
 Displays selected entities (“intermediate results”
tab)
15/21
What
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Organizes categorical dimensions
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Allows for filtering of activities
16/21
Shoebox and Comparison
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Shoebox provides a
container for collecting
entities that are under
investigation
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Comparison view supports
temporal comparisons
between entities.
17/21
Scenarios
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Scenario One :
 Linking Incidents to Reveal Global Strategy
▪ Who -> Where -> When -> What - >
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Scenario Two :
 Discovering Unexpected Temporal Patterns
▪ What -> Who -> Why
18/21
Scenarios 1:
Revealing Global Strategy
This group’s attacks are
not bounded by geolocations but instead,
religious beliefs.
Its attack patterns
changed with its
developments.
19/21
Scenario 2:
Discovering Unexpected Temporal Patterns
A geographicallybounded entity in the
Philippines.
Domestic Group
The ThemeRiver shows
its rise and fall as an
entity and its modus
operandi.
20/21
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Contribution
 Created a comprehensive set of tools for visually analyzing
global terrorism activities.
 Our tool models after one of the principles of
investigation, the 5 W’s.
 Using coordinated views and high interaction to allow an
investigator to explore the data and discover trends and
patterns.
21/21
Questions?
Thank you!
rchang@uncc.edu
http://viscenter.uncc.edu
22/21
23/21

Can operational or investigative processes and
methods be modeled into an exploratory
visualization?
 Example:
▪ Occulus Sandbox models after the use of “post-it” notes
▪ Investigative GTD models the 5 W’s
 How can we integrate visual exploration with process
modeling?
▪ Bank of America
▪ Department of Transportation
24/21
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Support reasoning systems.
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Provide online version for mass audience.
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Combine knowledge from Social Science
perspectives.