Thursday, February 18, 2010

Tableau

I found this very useful site that provides you with a data visualization tool that graphs in a variety of formats and I believe you can come up with your own (in C++) for those of you who speak those OH TOO CLEAR languages:-)

All you need is to find a good set of data, for example from AGGDATA which I showed in class. Some of their datasets are free to experiment with (and make sense off).

Or just search for government databases, there are thousands on every imaginable subject and they are free.
The data can be in different formats, for example Excel spreadsheet, Microsoft Access or plain vanilla text file (like CSV) If you want more professional databases like Firebird, MySQL and such you do have to upgrade. But for playing around and understanding the power of these types of tool the freebies are more than enough)

This example is fully is interactive so you can see lots of relationships. (I decided to just link to it because it kept expiring since it is hosted by the Tableu service. It is also easier to understand and use that way)

Then check their how-to demo, download some formatted data and have fun.

3 comments:

Shamim said...

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Brittany said...

This is a lot like gapminder and really useful for my research. I'm working with the College of Pediatrics to create a repository for information regarding countries' data protection and patient privacy laws. This will be used to govern medical professionals working overseas outside of HIPPA regulations. The problem, however, is that there is no aggdata type of list I could use. I must search out the information and make sense of it all myself. However, once that is done this program will be quite useful. Thanks for posting it.

Brittany said...

Unfortunately, it doesn't work on a mac.