Table Cartograms

A table cartogram of a two dimensional m × n table A of non-negative weights in a rectangle R, whose area equals the sum of the weights, is a partition of R into convex quadrilateral faces corresponding to the cells of A such that each face has the same adjacency as its corresponding cell and has area equal to the cell’s weight. Such a partition acts as a natural way to visualize table data arising in various fields of research. In this paper, we give a O(mn)-time algorithm to find a table cartogram in a rectangle. We then generalize our algorithm to obtain table cartograms inside arbitrary convex quadrangles, circles, and finally, on the surface of cylinders and spheres.