Fig. 1

Different ways that views can be linked. Multiple views of the same (b) or different datasets (a, c) can be composed and linked to facilitate data exploration and comparison. Two independent views of different samples provide free and independent exploration of each sample (a). Linking by zoom and location enforces the same scale and location in both samples (b). Zoom linking maintains the same scale while allowing free independent manipulation of the location (d). By linking location and leaving zooming free, one set of views can show an overview of a high resolution region (c). Displaying the extent of one view in another is referred to as a viewport projection in this manuscript and shows where a detail view is located in an overview (c, d). The process of linking views is illustrated in Fig. 6