MusicGalaxy: A Multi-focus Zoomable Interface for Multi-facet Exploration of Music Collections

A common way to support exploratory music retrieval scenarios is to give an overview using a neighborhood-preserving projection of the collection onto two dimensions. However, neighborhood cannot always be preserved in the projection because of the dimensionality reduction. Furthermore, there is usually more than one way to look at a music collection and therefore different projections might be required depending on the current task and the user’s interests. We describe an adaptive zoomable interface for exploration that addresses both problems: It makes use of a complex non-linear multi-focal zoom lens that exploits the distorted neighborhood relations introduced by the projection. We further introduce the concept of facet distances representing different aspects of music similarity. Given user-specific weightings of these aspects, the system can adapt to the user’s way of exploring the collection by manipulation of the neighborhoods as well as the projection.