Using these definitions, mapping datapoints in a graph is also converting data into an image in order to analyze it.

Tabulating data into tables similarly converts image visually so that mistakes or outliers can be spotted.

> Using these definitions

There's a transformation of the data that is analogous to how a human would use the data to find a variant. It's closer to inspecting a stack of widgets to find a defective widget than it is listing numbers in a table

Similar to instepcting a stack of rows to find a defective row

No actually, pileups aren’t just looking at a stack of rows. There are quality considerations,local realignment, multiple mapping - the data are high dimensional (genome mapping, qualities, indels) in a way that can’t be trivialized to “inspecting a stack of rows to find a defective row”

The work is not trivial even if the intuition is easy