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TIBCO Spotfire: A Comprehensive Primer
TIBCO Spotfire: A Comprehensive Primer

TIBCO Spotfire: A Comprehensive Primer: Create innovative enterprise-class informatics solutions using TIBCO Spotfire

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TIBCO Spotfire: A Comprehensive Primer

Chapter 2. Visualize This!

Human beings are fundamentally visual in the way they process information. I think the invention of writing was as much about visually representing our thoughts to others as it was about record keeping and accountancy. In the modern world, we are bombarded with formalized visual representations of information, from the ubiquitous opinion poll pie chart to clever and sophisticated infographics. The website http://data-art.net/resources/history_of_vis.php provides an informative and entertaining quick history of data visualization. If you want a truly breathtaking demonstration of the power of data visualization, seek out Hans Rosling's The best stats you've ever seen at http://ted.com.

In the last chapter, we spent time getting to know some of Spotfire's data capabilities. It's important that you continue to think about data; how it's structured, how it's related, and where it comes from. Building good visualizations requires...

Displaying information quickly in tabular form

While working through the data examples in the last chapter, we used the Spotfire Table visualization, but now we're going to take a closer look. People will nearly always want to see the "underlying data", the details behind any visualization you create. The Table visualization meets this need.

Note

It's very important not to confuse a table in the general data sense with the Spotfire Table visualization; the underlying data table remains immutable and complete in the background. The Table visualization is a highly manipulatable view of the underlying data table and should be treated as a visualization, not a data table.

The data used here is BaseballPlayerData.xls

Open the baseball analysis file from Chapter 1, Show Me the Data. If you didn't save it, just open a new analysis file and import the baseball player data.

I wrote at the very beginning of Chapter 1, Show Me the Data, that there is always more than one way...

Enriching your visualizations with color categorization

Color is a strong feature in Spotfire and an important visualization tool, often underestimated by report creators. It can be seen as merely a nice-to-have customization, but paying attention to color can be the difference between creating a stimulating and intuitive data visualization rather than an uninspiring and even confusing corporate report. Take some pride and care in the visual aesthetics of your analytics creations!

Let's take a look at the color properties of the Table visualization.

  1. Open the Table visualization properties again, select Colors, and then Add the column Runs.
    Enriching your visualizations with color categorization
  2. Now, you can play with a color gradient, adding points by clicking on the Add Point button and customizing the colors. It's as easy as left-clicking on any color box and then selecting from a prebuilt palette or going into a full RGB selection dialog by choosing More Colors….
    Enriching your visualizations with color categorization
  3. The result is a heatmap type effect for runs scored, with yellow...

Visualizing categorical information using bar charts

We saw how the Table visualization is perfect for showing and ordering detailed information. It's quite similar to a spreadsheet. The Bar Chart visualization is very good for visualizing categorical information, that is, where you have categories with supporting hard numbers—sales by region, for example. The region is the category, whereas the sales is the hard number or fact.

Bar charts are typically used to show a distribution. Depending on your data or your analytic requirement, the bars can be ordered by value, placed side by side, stacked on top of each other, or arranged vertically or horizontally.

There is a special case of the category and value combination and that is where you want to plot the frequencies of a set of numerical values. This type of bar chart is referred to as a histogram, and although it is number against number, it is still, in essence, a distribution plot. It is very common in fact to transform the...

Dividing a visualization across a trellis grid

Trellising, whereby you divide a series of visualizations into individual panels, is a useful technique when you want to subdivide your analysis. In the example we've been working with, we might, for instance, want to split the visualization by league.

  1. Open the visualization properties for the home runs distribution bar chart colored by salary and select the Trellis property.
  2. Go to Panels and split by League (use the dropdown column selector).
    Dividing a visualization across a trellis grid

Note

Spotfire allows you to build layers of information with even basic visualizations such as the bar chart. In one chart, we see the home run distribution by team, salary distribution by team, and breakdown by league.

Key Spotfire concept – marking

It's time to introduce one of the most important Spotfire concepts, called marking, which is central to the interactivity that makes Spotfire such a powerful analysis tool. Marking refers to the action of selecting data in a visualization. Every element you see is selectable, or markable, that is, a single row or multiple rows in a table, a single bar or multiple bars in a bar chart.

You need to understand two aspects to marking. First, there is the visual effect, or color(s) you see, when you mark (select) visualization elements. Second, there is the behavior that follows marking: what happens to data and the display of data when you mark something.

How to change the marking color

From Spotfire v5.5 onward, you can choose, on a visualization-by-visualization basis, two distinct visual effects for marking:

  • Use a separate color for marked items: all marked items are uniformly colored with the marking color, and all unmarked items retain their existing...

Displaying information quickly in tabular form


While working through the data examples in the last chapter, we used the Spotfire Table visualization, but now we're going to take a closer look. People will nearly always want to see the "underlying data", the details behind any visualization you create. The Table visualization meets this need.

Note

It's very important not to confuse a table in the general data sense with the Spotfire Table visualization; the underlying data table remains immutable and complete in the background. The Table visualization is a highly manipulatable view of the underlying data table and should be treated as a visualization, not a data table.

The data used here is BaseballPlayerData.xls

Open the baseball analysis file from Chapter 1, Show Me the Data. If you didn't save it, just open a new analysis file and import the baseball player data.

I wrote at the very beginning of Chapter 1, Show Me the Data, that there is always more than one way to do the same thing in Spotfire...

Enriching your visualizations with color categorization


Color is a strong feature in Spotfire and an important visualization tool, often underestimated by report creators. It can be seen as merely a nice-to-have customization, but paying attention to color can be the difference between creating a stimulating and intuitive data visualization rather than an uninspiring and even confusing corporate report. Take some pride and care in the visual aesthetics of your analytics creations!

Let's take a look at the color properties of the Table visualization.

  1. Open the Table visualization properties again, select Colors, and then Add the column Runs.

  2. Now, you can play with a color gradient, adding points by clicking on the Add Point button and customizing the colors. It's as easy as left-clicking on any color box and then selecting from a prebuilt palette or going into a full RGB selection dialog by choosing More Colors….

  3. The result is a heatmap type effect for runs scored, with yellow representing low...

Visualizing categorical information using bar charts


We saw how the Table visualization is perfect for showing and ordering detailed information. It's quite similar to a spreadsheet. The Bar Chart visualization is very good for visualizing categorical information, that is, where you have categories with supporting hard numbers—sales by region, for example. The region is the category, whereas the sales is the hard number or fact.

Bar charts are typically used to show a distribution. Depending on your data or your analytic requirement, the bars can be ordered by value, placed side by side, stacked on top of each other, or arranged vertically or horizontally.

There is a special case of the category and value combination and that is where you want to plot the frequencies of a set of numerical values. This type of bar chart is referred to as a histogram, and although it is number against number, it is still, in essence, a distribution plot. It is very common in fact to transform the continuous...

Dividing a visualization across a trellis grid


Trellising, whereby you divide a series of visualizations into individual panels, is a useful technique when you want to subdivide your analysis. In the example we've been working with, we might, for instance, want to split the visualization by league.

  1. Open the visualization properties for the home runs distribution bar chart colored by salary and select the Trellis property.

  2. Go to Panels and split by League (use the dropdown column selector).

Note

Spotfire allows you to build layers of information with even basic visualizations such as the bar chart. In one chart, we see the home run distribution by team, salary distribution by team, and breakdown by league.

Key Spotfire concept – marking


It's time to introduce one of the most important Spotfire concepts, called marking, which is central to the interactivity that makes Spotfire such a powerful analysis tool. Marking refers to the action of selecting data in a visualization. Every element you see is selectable, or markable, that is, a single row or multiple rows in a table, a single bar or multiple bars in a bar chart.

You need to understand two aspects to marking. First, there is the visual effect, or color(s) you see, when you mark (select) visualization elements. Second, there is the behavior that follows marking: what happens to data and the display of data when you mark something.

How to change the marking color

From Spotfire v5.5 onward, you can choose, on a visualization-by-visualization basis, two distinct visual effects for marking:

  • Use a separate color for marked items: all marked items are uniformly colored with the marking color, and all unmarked items retain their existing color.

  • Keep...

Visualizing trends using line charts


The Line Chart visualization is typically used to show trends, usually trends over time, but any functional relationship will work; infant mortality rate versus GDP per capita, for example. In many ways, the line chart is just what we would have called a graph in science class, plotting y against x and connecting the dots.

We need some new data to create a classic temporal line chart. I pulled some market interest rate data for the Czech Republic, Sweden, and the United Kingdom from the European Commission's Eurostat website. The plots illustrate the banking crisis that hit Sweden in 1992 and the Czech currency crisis of May 1997.

  1. Open the analysis file you've been working on or start a new analysis file, and import the Excel file containing the data (MoneyMarketInterestRates.xls, which you can download from http://www.insidespotfire.com).

  2. Now create a new page in the analysis, and add a Line Chart visualization, using either the Insert menu or the line...

Visualizing proportions using pie charts


The Pie Chart visualization is useful for showing simple proportions for a limited number of variables. If you have four values to compare, then the familiar pie slices can be a powerful visual aid. Increase to ten values of near-equal proportion, and you lose the audience. The slices must also be mutually exclusive and add up to a meaningful whole, such as 100 percent. The popular media are guilty of presenting opinion poll pie charts that add up to more than 100 percent.

Also, because the proportions are determined by angles and triangular section areas, people have difficulty accurately estimating the proportions, especially when they are close. Therefore, pie charts are almost always labeled with numbers. There is an excellent article at http://eagereyes.org/techniques/pie-charts on the advantages and limitations of the pie chart.

Let's look at the pie chart in Spotfire.

The data we'll use here is BaseballPlayerData.xls, which you can download from...

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Description

If you are a business user or data professional, this book will give you a solid grounding in the use of TIBCO Spotfire. This book assumes no prior knowledge of Spotfire or even basic data and visualization concepts.

Who is this book for?

If you are a business user or data professional, this book will give you a solid grounding in the use of TIBCO Spotfire. This book assumes no prior knowledge of Spotfire or even basic data and visualization concepts.

Product Details

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Publication date : Feb 19, 2015
Length: 348 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781782176404
Vendor :
TIBCO
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Publication date : Feb 19, 2015
Length: 348 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781782176404
Vendor :
TIBCO
Category :

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Table of Contents

11 Chapters
1. Show Me the Data Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Visualize This! Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Analyze That! Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. The Big Wide World of Spotfire Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Source Data is Never Enough Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. The World is Your Visualization Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. What's Your Location? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. The Secret Life of Python Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. It's All About Self-service These Days Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
10. Beyond the Horizon Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.1
(15 Ratings)
5 star 53.3%
4 star 26.7%
3 star 6.7%
2 star 6.7%
1 star 6.7%
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MIchael O'Connell Apr 29, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Terrific comprehensive primer on how to use Spotfire. Covers most functionality areas in a very rich feature set. Also covers APIs including Iron Python and Tibco Runtime for R (TERR). Highly recommended for new and experienced Spotfire users; something in this for everyone! Fantastic to have all this material in one place.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
KimH Jun 03, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Michael Phillips does a fantastic job covering both the core and advanced analytics capabilities of Spotfire. He covers everything from how to get to your data to how to build intuitive dashboards that resonate across the enterprise to how to leverage IronPython scripts and the Spotfire API to solve more complex problems. I highly recommend this book to both those just starting out with Spotfire and those who have been using Spotfire for a while and could benefit from a comprehensive desk reference. Great book!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
MWMTX Sep 06, 2017
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Really a great book when you have to learn the process on your own!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
CrunchyFrog Aug 01, 2017
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Great book. Still relevant with the latest release of Spotfire. If he updated the text to the latest version it would be an instant purchase for me.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Amazon Kunde Feb 15, 2018
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Das Buch bietet ein solides Basiswissen mit Übungsaufgaben. Es ist gut strukturiert und bietet einen sehr schönen Überblick über das gesamte Spotfire Portfolio.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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