Visualisation for Decision Support in Many-Objective Optimisation : State-of-the-art, Guidance and Future Directions

Abstract

This chapter describes the state-of-the-art in visualisation for decision support processes in problems with many objectives. Visualisation is an important part of a constructive decision making process for examining real world many-objective problems. The chapter first illustrates how visualisation can be applied to problem framing, guided optimization, trade-off assessment and solution selection. Next, the chapter reviews state-of-the-art visualisation approaches in terms of what is available and what is typically used. Guidance is provided for choosing and applying visualisation techniques including recommendations from the field of visual analytics. These recommendations are illustrated through a complex real-world decision problem with ten objectives. Lastly, the chapter concludes with suggested future research directions for advancing the scope and impact of many-objective optimisation when confronting complex decision making contexts.