Calliope: Automatic Visual Data Story Generation from a Spreadsheet
Danqing Shi, Xinyue Xu, Fuling Sun, Yang Shi, Nan Cao

TL;DR
Calliope is an automated system that generates visual data stories from spreadsheets using a novel Monte Carlo tree search algorithm, making data storytelling more accessible and efficient.
Contribution
It introduces a new logic-oriented Monte Carlo tree search method for automatic visual story generation from spreadsheets, enabling easy revision and interpretation.
Findings
Calliope effectively generates coherent visual data stories.
The system reduces time and skill barriers in data storytelling.
Expert feedback confirms its usefulness and efficiency.
Abstract
Visual data stories shown in the form of narrative visualizations such as a poster or a data video, are frequently used in data-oriented storytelling to facilitate the understanding and memorization of the story content. Although useful, technique barriers, such as data analysis, visualization, and scripting, make the generation of a visual data story difficult. Existing authoring tools rely on users' skills and experiences, which are usually inefficient and still difficult. In this paper, we introduce a novel visual data story generating system, Calliope, which creates visual data stories from an input spreadsheet through an automatic process and facilities the easy revision of the generated story based on an online story editor. Particularly, Calliope incorporates a new logic-oriented Monte Carlo tree search algorithm that explores the data space given by the input spreadsheet to…
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