> So presumably we could learn to distinguish closely packed shapes if we were familiar enough with the conventions.
The data visualization people have already demonstrated this with sparklines and small multiples. There are fewer preattentive attributes than most people would assume so I expect increasingly dense visual representations to approach text (e.g. logograms).
I'll also point out that data viz people have also come up with reasonable solutions to problems mentioned like wire bundling. I haven't seen an auto-layout algorithm I like but I've found a reasonable guess followed by manual manipulation with automatic wire routing to be okay for visualizations and the circuit drawing and VLSI I did 20 years ago in college.
The data visualization people have already demonstrated this with sparklines and small multiples. There are fewer preattentive attributes than most people would assume so I expect increasingly dense visual representations to approach text (e.g. logograms).
I'll also point out that data viz people have also come up with reasonable solutions to problems mentioned like wire bundling. I haven't seen an auto-layout algorithm I like but I've found a reasonable guess followed by manual manipulation with automatic wire routing to be okay for visualizations and the circuit drawing and VLSI I did 20 years ago in college.