Supporting Multi-Level Models in Systems Biology by Visual Methods
Susanne Biermann · 2004
Multi-level models describe a system on differ-ent organization levels explicating the structure of a system, in terms of its components and the inter-action between those. In Systems Biology, multi-level models result in a hierarchical structure, whose different layers might comprise thousands of model components. To make full use of the advantage of multi-level models, i.e. the explicit representation of the model’s structure, visualization techniques are required that support overview and detail inspec-tions in an interactive manner. Based on a model, which describes the tryptophan synthase as a multi-level model in James, we show how different infor-mation visualization techniques, i.e. overview and detail techniques, Rings, interactive foldings of sub-structures and sinks for information hiding, can be combined to support the analysis of even highly un-balanced model structures. 1