StepTree Alternatives

StepTree

StepTree, TreeMap Visualization of Harddrive & Files

This application draws on ideas from the last 15 or so years of research on a type of space filling visualization called Tree-Maps (first introduced in the early nineties by Ben Shneiderman). It is basically a Tree-Map extended into three dimensions where the size of files and directories is mapped to area in the visualization. Thus the area of a directory in the visualization is an aggregate of the sizes of all its descendants (subdirectories and files).

Visualization tools of this type have been used to visualize everything from files systems, aggregates of huge datasets on customer activity, the daily price change of stocks on the stock market (by sector, country etc.) and individual trader performance.

My application is experimental and therefore limited to the visualization of file system hierarchies. For more generalized business intelligence visualization solutions along the lines described above (including scatter plots, heat maps, stacked area charts etc.) you you may want to check out Panopticon Software. S applications JobTimer and JustJot.