A Taxonomy of Visualization Techniques 26
CowboyRobot writes "The ACM's Queue magazine has a new, comprehensive taxonomy of visualization techniques, drawing from the theories of Edward Tufte and citing examples from academia, government, and the excellent NYT visualization team. This list contains 12 steps for turning data into a compelling visualization: Visualize, Filter, Sort, Derive, Select, Navigate, Coordinate, Organize, Record, Annotate, Share, & Guide. 'For developers, the taxonomy can function as a checklist of elements to consider when creating new analysis tools.' The citations alone make this an article worth bookmarking."
ManyEyes by IBM (Score:5, Informative)
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turning data into a compelling visualization (Score:3)
must mean really small slides where you cant really see whats going on with a puke green background and enormous blobs of text between
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must mean really small slides where you cant really see whats going on with a puke green background and enormous blobs of text between
That's called an "academic paper", and it's designed to be intensely boring to ordinary human beings - to academia to, but they won't admit it - and this particular piece certainly fits the bill.
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Usually ones with "taxonomy" in the title are doubly tedious.
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The PDF has more pixels: http://portal.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=2146416&type=pdf [acm.org]
While visually pleasing.. (Score:3)
.. I can't help but think of this as more of a way to make data look the way you want it to.
In short, a visually pleasing way to bend the facts that are presented in the data.
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Or to hide irrelevant data...
With great power comes great... whatwasthatagain? Electricity bills? Oh yeah...
Re:While visually pleasing.. (Score:4, Insightful)
.. I can't help but think of this as more of a way to make data look the way you want it to.
In short, a visually pleasing way to bend the facts that are presented in the data.
Yes, of course visualisation can be used for that -- the same way statistics in general can be manipulated. But that is an abuse of the tools. I do understand what you're saying though (I think): it might be an easy trap to fall in if one becomes focussed on presentation and therefore losing sight of the actual goal. Used correctly I think visualisation software can provide many insights that would be difficult (prohibitively time-expensive, or just plain non-intuitive) using other traditional methods. As always though, it is up to the author(s) to ensure that the presented data (i.e. information) is correct.
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It's pretty fun. That said, most of the most interesting visualization work I've seen tends to be roll-your-own using Processing/JAVA, etc. I haven't heard of any of this software before... and no mention of R?
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.. I can't help but think of this as more of a way to make data look the way you want it to.
In short, a visually pleasing way to bend the facts that are presented in the data.
Need some AI macros - "Make this data make us look profitable", kind of thing.
Network / Firewall visualization (Score:1)
Do any of you know any tools that I can feed a Cisco config file into and get a visual representation of the ACLs?
But how do they handle big data? (Score:1)
Tableau, Qlikview precube it, only Spotfire can go directly against the database. And without big data, visual analysis these days is but a toy.
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This is a great article! No wonder so few comments.
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Are they webscale?
I preferred the previous one (Score:2, Informative)
A Tour through the Visualization Zoo [acm.org]
It seems to be more complete and more oriented to concepts instead of website examples. But may be a personal preference.
Visualization Periodic Table (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Visualization Periodic Table (Score:4, Insightful)
It is ironic that anyone promoting data visualisation would slavishly copy the layout of the periodic table of the elements, which is one of the most brilliant examples in the history of the field precisely because it is derived from the real underlying structure of the chemical elements and as a result it highlights useful practical relationships. I have yet to discover another data set with the same underlying structure and the same resulting relationships between the data points, and thus I have yet to discover another context where that kind of periodic table is a useful tool rather than a gimmick.
That said, the content itself at the site you linked to seems interesting. It's just a shame they cheapened it by using a completely inappropriate metaphor.
Of all the /. stories that are partially hid, why? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is easily the most densely packed with usefulness article I've seen on /. in months.
The irony that THIS OF ALL ARTICLES is partially hidden visually "makes me want to vomit"!
Data are plural (Score:2)