Visualization system including data navigator for use with digital computer system

A data visualization system for displaying a selected region of a multi-dimensional data object, the data object comprising a plurality of data elements organized in a hierarchy of dimensions, each dimension being associated with an axis, each data element having a position in the data object defined by an index value for each dimension, the data visualization system comprising:

• A. a data object store configured to store the data object;
• B. an interface configured to receive region identification information identifying the selected region, the region identification information including index range values along each identified axis which define the region of the data object to be displayed, the region identification information being updatable;
• C. an object region retrieval element configured to use the region identification information to retrieve data elements from said data store corresponding to the region defined by the axis identifier information and index range values received by the interface, the object region retrieval element being further configured to determine whether updated region identification information identifies a region that overlaps with previously-received region identification information and, if so, retrieve only data elements in the non-overlapping region;
• and
• D. a display configured to display the data elements as retrieved by the object region retrieval element, the display being further configured to, if it receives only data elements in the non-overlapping region, display the data elements along with at least a portion of the previously-received data elements.