Abstract Immigrants are central to the identity of the United States, the population of which has grown in number and diversity as a function of new arrivals from around the globe. This article describes a visualization project that uses the visual metaphor of tree rings to explore the contribution of immigrants to the country’s population. Immigrants and native-born persons are represented and differentiated as cells in trees, with layered annual rings capturing patterns of population growth. These rings register, in their shape and color, certain environmental conditions. In order to mimic the natural process by which growth rings are formed, we devised a computational system that simulates the growth of trees as if cells were data-units. Dendrochronology involves dating certain events by analyzing patterns of growth in trees. Analogously, in our visualizations the rings can be counted and dated, showing the chronological evolution of the population. The dendrochronology theme is a poetic take on the data, yet it is also a functional and conceptual space that is used to construct language and rationales on that data. The tree-growth process not only inspires the appearance of the visualizations but also informs the rules of the computational system that creates them.

中文翻译：

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美国移民的树木年代学

摘要 移民是美国身份的核心，随着来自世界各地的新移民，美国人口的数量和多样性都在增长。本文描述了一个可视化项目，该项目使用年轮的视觉隐喻来探索移民对国家人口的贡献。移民和本地出生的人被代表和分化为树中的细胞，分层的年轮捕捉了人口增长的模式。这些戒指的形状和颜色反映了某些环境条件。为了模拟年轮形成的自然过程，我们设计了一个计算系统来模拟树木的生长，就好像细胞是数据单元一样。树木年代学涉及通过分析树木的生长模式来确定某些事件的年代。类似地，在我们的可视化中，可以对环进行计数和标注日期，显示人口的时间演变。树木年代学主题是对数据的诗意诠释，但它也是一个功能和概念空间，用于在该数据上构建语言和基本原理。树的生长过程不仅激发了可视化的外观，而且告知了创建它们的计算系统的规则。