Line charts are one of the most common and useful charts out there. But why draw straight lines between the data points? They almost never represent what the data is actually doing, no matter if the data is single observations or aggregated over time. How do line charts actually work, and what do they imply about the data?
eagereyes
Visualization and Visual Communication
Main Content
eagereyesTV: Index Charts, Part 2: Chopping Up and Folding the Time Axis
I covered the more commonly known value index charts in my my last video on index charts, this one is about indexing on the horizontal, or time, axis. It’s kind of fascinating how you can fold the time axis to get a better view of your data. I show how it works and walk through a number of examples, using housing prices, camera sales, global warming, and even data about my running!
eagereyesTV: Index Charts, Part 1: Making Time Series Data Comparable
To show change over time, you typically use a line chart. But when you’re comparing time series whose values are very different, the differences between the lines can obscure the changes within them. Index charts can help with that. They align values to a reference, or fold the time axis on itself, or even do […]
More Things To Do at VIS: BELIV, VisLies, Social Media Meetup, Etc.
For next week’s IEEE VIS conference, here are some more pointers to things that I think are worth checking out in addition to my previous list. This includes a few of the major events as well as some meetups you might otherwise have missed.
Starter Pack
Some essentials to get you started on this site.
ZIPScribble Map
What happens when you connect all the ZIP codes in the U.S. in order? It's a surprising and interesting pattern. Explore yourself!
Pie Charts
Think you know pie charts? Here's an overview, tips&tricks, and cutting-edge research on the chart everybody loves to hate.
Techniques
Bar charts, pie charts, parallel coordinates, Venn diagrams, … What are they? How do they work? Which one do you use for what?
Papers
When I publish scientific papers, I write about them here. There's research on visualization techniques, perception, and other topics.
Calendar
eagereyes has been around for a bit! This interactive calendar lets you explore more than ten years' worth of content.