US Patent 9105118 Galaxy views for visualizing large numbers of nodes

A system and method for illustrating data. An example method includes organizing the data into objects; assigning a transparency value to each object; and graphically depicting the data by distributing nodes representing the objects in a region of a visualization in accordance with a distribution method or function. Each node is displayed as partially transparent in accordance with the transparency value. In a more specific embodiment, the visualization includes a galaxy visualization with nodes that are randomly or pseudo randomly distributed about a center point or region of the visualization.