Visualizing large data sets

Published 04 March 08 10:23 AM

I am down at Etech in San Diego this and thought I would share some of the things I found Interesting.

Information Visualization is a Medium

Eric Rodenbeck from Stamen Design did a great little talk about using visualizations to show large data sets in context. One note that stood out was showing everything (all data) and using filtering to allow users to explore the data. Allowing easy exploration of data through simple filtering or visuals can make large data much easier to use and understand. It's becoming a common pattern on the web (check out this search for available car leases).

He had a great sample showing crime stats in Oakland, this website allows you to filter down crimes by type and time and see the trends. It's pretty interesting.

Oakland

As we move into a world of web services how we can start to visualize the data we are all collecting in our databases becomes an important exercise. We would love to hear any ideas from about how you could imagine using alternate data visualizations in your databases.

by Ryan McMinn

Comments

# Brandon Smith said on March 4, 2008 5:15 PM:

Hi Ryan,

It's not quite a slick as a map, but my company just released a new product that lets you create visual dashboards in Microsoft Access for the very reason you mention:  visualizing data is far more powerful often than sifting through forms and queries.  Anyone interested can download a free eval:

http://www.opengatesw.net/products/Dashboard Builder/DashboardBuilder.htm

# Brandon Smith said on March 4, 2008 5:18 PM:

Corrected link:

http://www.opengatesw.net/products/Dashboard%20Builder/DashboardBuilder.htm

# Garry Robinson said on March 5, 2008 5:07 AM:

Hi Ryan,  8 years ago I developed some way tricky queries to visualise and query mining data in grids and 3d models, no fancy graphs, just quick flexible output. We used this to analyse complex mining data by averaging 3d points within blocks (3d grids).  See the 2d stuff here.

http://www.vb123.com/Toolshed/00_Docs/spatialaccess.htm

Garry

# Gilad said on March 5, 2008 11:02 AM:

Hi,

I don't know if this is relevant to the Internet world, but I think one of the most basic and useful visualizations is the TreeView. It can be a great addition to Access.

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