Thanks to the 30+ CDVG members that came out to the first night of the Graphing in R & ggplot2 workshop at 1871. It was a great start and I look forward to doing more of these in the future. I’ve updated the presentation and posted it to slideshare. Here is a highlight of the changes:
- added link to a matrix multiplication tutorial on the Matrix: Arithmetic slide (p. 26).
- changed the data frame subsetting example to access columns by name instead of index number.
- cleaned up typos.
- added references page.
Free copy of the R Cookbook for the first person to post and share a valid solution to any one of the exercises on slide number 36. You can post on your own blog, on our CDVG blog (contact me) or Github(recommended). just let us know where you put it.
Another reminder that we don’t have the IMSA classroom on October 22 and we will either push the schedule a week or just meet in the shared areas of 1871. We will make that decision before leaving 1871 this coming Monday.
I look forward to seeing everyone next week when we will start using ggplot2 under the tutelage of Tom Schenk. Bring $5 if you want to have pizza that night. Drinks are BYO. I’ll bring a few extra beers for anyone that wants to do a beer swap. It’s a great way to discover something new to drink.
See everyone Monday.
–
Thanks,
CDVG members will meet to discuss free online data visualization course offered by Knight Center.
October 10, 2012
Josh Doyle
Alberto Cairo and the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas is offering a free online introduction to data journalism and infographics course in October. I am signing up and I hope that some of you will join me. If you want to discuss the course materials with your fellow CDVG members also taking the course then sign up for the meeting at our meetup site.
Meeting Topic Suggestion: Real-time data flows and updates with no lags in order to make better decisions on fresh data
October 1, 2012
Josh Doyle
CDVG member Adam Kallish recently proposed:
Real-time data flows and updates with no lags in order to make better decisions on fresh data
as a topic for a future meeting.
Please express your interest in this topic by commenting below.
Meeting Topic Suggestion: Temporal meaning of data depending on the context of access and use
October 1, 2012
Josh Doyle
CDVG member Adam Kallish recently proposed:
Discussion of the temporal meaning of data depending on the context of access and use (work/home/travel)
as a topic for a future meeting.
Please express your interest in this topic by commenting below.
Meeting Topic Suggestion: Cognitive and workload performance increases through data visualization
October 1, 2012
Josh Doyle
CDVG member Adam Kallish recently proposed:
Discussion of cognitive and workload performance increases through data visualization and interacting with data
as a topic for a future meeting.
Please express your interest in this topic by commenting below.
CDVG member Adam Kallish recently proposed:
discussions on rich internet applications and discussions when browser based, or fat client/RIA applications for multi-modal platforms (laptop/tablet/phone/hybrid) are best applicable for a particular solution
as a topic for a future meeting.
Please express your interest in this topic by commenting below.
Description
Introduce yourself to R and the powerful graphing library based on the Grammar of Graphics–ggplot2. Attendees will work in small teams to learn how to generate basic and advanced plots in ggplot2 to solve a variety of problems. The workshop will also review the fundamentals of data visualization to increase the readability and clarity of plots.
The workshop is open to all types of users, including those who are unfamiliar with R. We will mix some demonstration with small group-based projects. Basic principles of data visualization will also be emphasized alongside ggplot2 demonstrations to put the program into a larger context.
Audience
The workshop is targeted to individuals who are not familiar with ggplot2, including beginners who are new to the R software. Attendees will need to bring there own computer where we will install the R and ggplot2 software–don’t worry, both are open source and free.
Time, Location, & Signup
The workshop begins October 8 in the IMSA classroom at 1871 located on the 12th floor of The Merchandise Mart (222 W. Merchandise Mart Plaza). It includes four sessions (outline below) meeting on consecutive Mondays at 6pm. The IMSA room isn’t available on October 22 so, depending on the number of attendees, we will either meet in a smaller conference room or push the schedule a week.
There are only 30 seats available for this workshop due to the size limitations of the IMSA classroom. Interested attendees need to go to the CDVG meetup site to sign up for each of the four sessions.
Workshop Leaders
The workshop will be led by CDVG member Tom Schenk. Tom is a Senior Research Data Analyst at Northwestern University, Department of Medical Social Sciences. You can read more about Tom on his website. He also curates Data Nouveau–a collection of interesting data visualizations on the web.
Tom will be assisted by CDVG member Josh Doyle (who is relatively new to R & ggplot2 and will ask the dumb questions so others won’t have to). We also expect to have some other experienced folks in the room to help out.
Workshop Outline
Introduction to R (October 8)
We will familiarized ourselves with the R environment with a gentle introduction to the basic functions. After installing R, we will import and inspect data sets while becoming familiar with R terminology. By the end of the class, we will conduct basic descriptions and plots of the data.
- Learn how to import data into R.
- Understand the structure of data sets and their components..
- Learn how to describe data.
- Download and install new packages from CRAN.
- Plot data using basic R functions.
Introduction to ggplot2 (October 15)
We will begin to use the ggplot2 package to create basic, but handsome, univariate, bivariate, and time-series graphs. We will introduce the functions and terminology used in ggplot2. We will also explain the fundamentals of proper data visualization techniques and how it relates to the ggplot2 defaults.
- Install the ggplot2 package.
- Use geometric shapes to display data.
Grammar of Graphics (October 22 or 29)
We will continue to show more advanced features of ggplot2, including how it relates to Leland Wilkinson’s Grammar of Graphics. We will show how to plot more than 2 variables in a single graph using colors, shapes, and sizes. We will also discuss how human ability to perceive different shapes and colors should drive the choices we make in data visualization.
- Using scales to add information.
- Using coordinates to aid interpretations.
- Easily create small multiple graphs.
Plots for Publications (October 29 or November 5)
After learning how to make plots, we will learn how to customize graphs with custom colors, labels, and themes. We will emphasize how to create a customized look to be included in publications, including adding labels in diagrams to help readers.
- Saving graphs from R into publication-friendly formats.
- Use custom colors for plots.
- Use your own fonts.
- Customizing ggplot2 graphs with the new themes feature.
UPDATE: Links to presentations from our meeting on 8/29.
- Data-driven: at the intersection of design and analytics by Dean Malmgren
- Visualization Data on the US Electric Grid by Matej Mavricek
Thank you to everyone that turned out last evening for our CDVG meeting. Special thanks to
- Dean Malmgren for spending an hour discussing many of projects he and his partners (Mike Stringer & Aaron Wolf) at Datascope Analytics have delivered. I think these guys like nothing better than a wrangling a massive and messy network of data and discovering insights. You can read more about the Proctor & Gamble project on the Datascope Analytics site.
- Matej Mavricek of Power Switch for sharing the challenge he has in visualizing the US Electric Grid. I think this is an interesting problem with insights yet to be discovered. The resulting visualizations might be an interesting combination of network diagrams and maps. He is willing to meet with anyone interested in this topic. He can be reached at mmavricek@pwrswitch.org and by phone at (312) 344-1404.
- Everyone that asked questions and approached me after the meeting. I enjoyed speaking with each of you and I’m sorry that I didn’t get to spend more time.
- Technexus and Taylor Kinsella for hosting.
- Our weekly learning and hack nights starting October 1 at 1871. Read more about this here.
- Brian Ringley, CDVG member and a Solution Architect with Slalom Consulting, is representing all Microsoft visualization technologies: Excel, Powerpivot, and Powerview. We are scheduling a future presentation with him but he is open to receiving questions now from any members that have interests in these tools.
- Open City. This group is a great example of what can be done with open access to government data and open source tools. You can support what they do by taking a look at their apps. You can also participate in the weekly Open Government Hack Nights they host.
- Chicago Tableau User Group meetup on October 2. This group is organized by Rina Bongsu-Petersen. I hear that these have been great meetups in the past. I’ll be going and I hope to see you there.
- Books that I forgot to give away. They are Designing Data Visualizations by Noah Llinsky & Julie Steele, R Cookbook by Paul Teetor, and Getting Started with D3 by Mike Dewar. So I know I said that I would give these to the first three people that sent me an email with a suggestion for meetings but…I’m going to change the rules a bit. Sorry. Instead, members that share a relevant visualization, article, or blog post will have their name entered in to a drawing for a book. We will draw the names at our next meeting to be scheduled for September or October. Share twice and your name is entered twice, share three times and your name is entered three times, and so on. Options for sharing include tweeting to @chicagodatavis, posting to the Chicago Data Visualization Group on LinkedIn, or posting to the CDVG website. I’ll have to grant you publishing access to the latter which I will do willingly for those wanting to contribute. Happy sharing!
- I’m always interested in those members that want to get involved in the group. Contact me if you are interested in hosting/sponsoring a meeting, finding venues, making this boring looking website cool, etc.
Thanks again for coming last night.
I’m happy to announce that the CDVG will host weekly learning sessions at 1871 focused on tools and technologies. That’s right. Every Monday we will get our hands dirty with data, code, and utilities. Some nights we may have an instructor and other nights we’ll just all learn together. All levels of knowledge will be welcome. CDVG member Tom Schenk, Jr and I are still working through the organization of topics. I’ll provide more details on the content of these weekly sessions soon.
Really looking forward to this.
Matej Mavricek will be presenting Visualization Data on the US Electric Grid at our next CDVG meeting on Aug. 29. Matej is a Senior Analyst with Power Switch. This is an energy think tank in Chicago focusing on effective research of the US Energy sector. He has a particular interest in creating some visualizations of the Electric Power Grid. He will discuss his objectives for a visualization and present the data that Power Switch has gathered. Anyone interested in creating visualizations of this data will be able to post them on the CDVG website and solicit feedback from other CDVG members. Matej will also offer feedback on the visualizations created and Power Switch may choose to use the visualizations in their materials. This is a great opportunity to get practice and exposure!
