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Category: Visualization

Voronoi Diagrams with R and x11()

Published 2021-11-01 by Kevin Feasel

Tomaz Kastrun creates a Voronoi diagram:

Yes. Finally, the Voronoi diagrams with the use of x11() function. This diagram is presentation of a plane that is partitioned every time, a user clicks on the canvas of x11. This plane is partitioned into smaller regions that are close to given set of points.

Partitioning into smaller regions or convex polygons happens in such manner that each polygon contains only one generating point and every point in a given polygon is closer to its generating point than to any other.

I had to take a look out of curiosity, and yes, the x11() function does work on Windows as well.

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Showing Count of Selected Items in a Slicer

Published 2021-11-01 by Kevin Feasel

Prathy Kamasani wants to track slicer counts:

In one of the projects, I was working on, I received feedback saying it is hard to understand how many items they have selected in a slicer, and it is not the first time I came across this. It is a valid point, especially when you have quite a few items in a slicer, you use a search bar to look for items, you select a couple, but you were not sure how many were selected.

Read on for a rather clever solution to the problem.

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Page Allocation Reports in SSMS

Published 2021-10-26 by Kevin Feasel

Eitan Blumin has updated an open source project:

Back in April 2020, I created an open-source project called “SQL Server Page Allocation Reports“. It consisted of a set of SQL queries and some Power BI reports that can be used for visualizing the size and locations of your data and transaction log pages.

Well, recently I also added SSMS Custom Reports into the mix. So, it’s time to revisit this project and see what’s new!

Click through to see what’s new.

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De-Cluttering a LIne Chart

Published 2021-10-19 by Kevin Feasel

Mike Cisneros trims the fat, and there’s a lot of it:

My colleague Alex was the first person I heard refer to the underlying structure of a graph as its “skeleton.” This includes all the features that give form and shape to your graph, but that ideally—like bones—we never even really notice or see. The skeleton frames and structures our graph, but doesn’t include the data itself. 

If we don’t take the time to organize the skeleton of a chart thoughtfully and intentionally, our data won’t be appropriately supported. To an audience, something will always seem a little bit amiss.

Click through for a Halloween-themed visual update.

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Building a D3 Visualization in R

Published 2021-10-13 by Kevin Feasel

The Jumping Rivers team show how to create a D3 visual in R:

D3.js, or just D3 as it’s more often referred to, is a JavaScript library used for creating interactive data visualisations optimised for the web. D3 stands for Data-Driven Documents. It is commonly used by those who enjoy making creative or otherwise unusual visualisations as it offers you a great deal of freedom as well as options for interactivity such as animated transitions and plot zooming.

Click through for the blog post and also check out the associated GitHub repo. D3 is an incredibly powerful framework, but is almost as complex as it is powerful.

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Emulating Visual Deficiencies with Edge DevTools

Published 2021-10-04 by Kevin Feasel

Chris Webb shows off a feature in Microsoft Edge:

I’m not an expert on Power BI report accessibility like Meagan Longoria but I do know how important an issue accessibility is. I also know how difficult it can be to remember to check for accessibility issues when building reports which is why, when I was watching this video on new features in Edge DevTools, I was pleased to see that Edge now makes it easy to see how your report looks like when viewed by someone with vision deficiencies.

Click through to see this extension in action.

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Visualization in Spark with Drsti

Published 2021-09-23 by Kevin Feasel

Jean-Georges Perrin shows off a Spark library:

I was looking for an effortless data visualization that would interface easily with Apache Spark. I found a few interesting tools, but nothing that would not require some complex interfacing, setup, or infrastructure. In a good geek way, I then decided to write the tool. This lack of simple tools is how Drsti (pronounced drishti) was born.

Aren’t you tired of looking at dataframes that looked like they came straight from a 1980 VT100? Sure, if you use notebooks, either standalone or hosted (IBM Watson Studio, Databricks…), you are not (or less) confronted with the issue. However, if you are building pipelines outside of the Data Science toys, oops, tools, you may need to visualize data in a graph.

Read on to see how it works and some of what you can do with Drsti.

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Adjusting Bar Widths in Excel

Published 2021-09-16 by Kevin Feasel

Elizabeth Ricks explains how you can change the width of a bar in Excel:

Before we get into the step-by-step, I should mention that there aren’t any strict rules for optimal spacing between bars. Rather, it’s personal preference similar to wearing white after Labor Day (in the U.S., that’s the first weekend in September). As a resident of the muggy Southeast, I’ll be rocking white until fall temperatures arrive in mid-October. However, if you live in cooler climes and consider Labor Day the symbolic end of summer, your preference might be to say sayonara to white until Memorial Day. 

The same gray area goes for optimal spacing between bars. The actual width is not set in stone. Our goal is to enable our audiences to compare the lengths of the bars (instead of the area between them), so general guidance is to thicken the bars to minimize the surrounding white space.

Click through for the process.

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Tools and Tips for Accessibility

Published 2021-09-14 by Kevin Feasel

Daron Yöndem shares insights:

Last week, as a new employee, I went through Microsoft’s internal employee learning portal and found the Accessibility 101 online course. To my surprise, the course did have a good amount of practical information and connected the concept of accessibility nicely to inclusion and diversity. In this post, I want to share a couple of the practical steps to help you step up your accessibility game. If you are where I was, I’m sure you will love these.

Click through for some easy ways to improve presentations and webpages. Most of this is a few minutes’ worth of effort but can pay dividends. On a side note, congrats to Daron for the Microsoft gig. I enjoyed working with him in the past and know he’ll do great there.

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