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InteractiVenn – Interactive Venn Diagrams

119 points by histories 2y ago

jwilber 2y ago
Interesting that this was published in a bioinformatics journal.
- heuermh 2y ago
  I was at ISMB [0] and BOSC [1] conferences earlier this month and Venn and Euler diagrams were all over the poster session. Not sure why, but biologists love them! I wrote an implementation of Venn and Euler diagrams for the bioinformatics data visualization application Cytoscape many years ago [2]. Sigh, thick clients in Java haven't aged all that well. [0] - https://www.iscb.org/ismb2024/home https://www.iscb.org/ismb2024/home [1] - https://www.open-bio.org/events/bosc-2024/ https://www.open-bio.org/events/bosc-2024/ [2] - https://apps.cytoscape.org/apps/vennandeulerdiagrams https://apps.cytoscape.org/apps/vennandeulerdiagrams
connorlanewhite 2y ago
This would almost certainly be more difficult, but I'd love if the diagram's relative sizes (optionally) accounted for the size of the sets' data – e.g. if set A and B have 2 items each with zero overlap, it would show two circles of equal size, completely apart from one another
- aargh_aargh 2y ago
  I've just found this for the exact same reason, for 2-10 sets. The gradient descent is done client-side (Tensorflow.js): https://www.deepvenn.com/ https://www.deepvenn.com/ I've stress-tested it with ~5 sets around ~50k items, comes back in seconds, well under a minute.
  - pimlottc 2y ago
    I've used this before, it's a cool idea but it only sort of works. For most non-trivial examples, there will be still be a big discrepancy between the visual area of overlaps and the and the actual element count. Claiming that the graph is area-proportional might actually be more misleading if it's not actually accurate. To improve it, you'd need more ways to mutate the shapes to try to find a solution with less error. E.g. if the circles could be squashed into ellipses, that would probably help. Of course, some higher-order graphs can't be shown with convex shapes at all, so you'd ideally want to be able to pull and stretch areas as needed. It's a hard problem.
leipert 2y ago
In case you need a quick Euler diagram (Venn and Euler are often mixed up), I recently found: https://eulerr.co/ https://eulerr.co/
martypitt 2y ago
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2962/ https://xkcd.com/2962/
Aardwolf 2y ago
The 5-set Venn diagram looks beautiful (and is apparently by Branko Grünbaum), but is a similar symmetric 4-set Venn diagram also possible? Can't find any such example on the internet EDIT: apparently not, from Wikipedia: "David Wilson Henderson showed, in 1963, that the existence of an n-Venn diagram with n-fold rotational symmetry implied that n was a prime number."
philsnow 2y ago
I've had an inkling at various times to make a widget or app or something for players of Diplomacy [0] that uses this visualization to make it easier to see activity in all of your conversations at a glance / select who to talk to. It always ends up being more of a 'fun' idea than something that would actually be useful, though, because the 6-set Venn diagram is so much more difficult to visually parse than just a list of countries in a "To" line. [0] when played with "white press", which is where players can send messages to another player / to multiple other players, and the source of the message is authenticated. This is in contrast to "gray press" where the source is / can be anonymous instead of authenticated and "black press" where the source can be spoofed.
nikolay 2y ago
Kamala Harris approves this service [0]! [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edDnGiJStvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edDnGiJStvs
- wonks 2y ago
  Dammit, beat me to it!
low_tech_punk 2y ago
Wow, that 6-set visualization feels more asymmetric than 2,3,4,5. Is there an upper bound to the number of sets you can visualize in 2D, and how about 3D?
- wonger_ 2y ago
  I don't think there's any bound to 2D visualizations. The challenge seems to be constructing symmetric or useful visualizations, which has kept people busy up to n=11 apparently: https://www.combinatorics.org/files/Surveys/ds5/ds5v3-2005/VennEJC.html https://www.combinatorics.org/files/Surveys/ds5/ds5v3-2005/V...
wonger_ 2y ago
Ah, I've made interactive Venn diagrams too! Such a niche topic. Here's a fun example of a 5-venn (give it a few seconds): https://editor.p5js.org/jwong/sketches/vC2x-M_QU https://editor.p5js.org/jwong/sketches/vC2x-M_QU I was investigating visual aids for math tutoring. Interactivity took a bit of work. Here's some alternative Venn implementations: https://wonger.dev/posts/behind-venn#prior-art https://wonger.dev/posts/behind-venn#prior-art
leonim 2y ago
This is cool. I'll mention an alternative way to visualize Venn diagrams are UpSet Plots. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UpSet_plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UpSet_plot [2]: https://upset.app/ https://upset.app/ -- points to multiple implementations.
nlasdhl 2y ago
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119 points by histories 2y ago

jwilber 2y ago

Interesting that this was published in a bioinformatics journal.

heuermh 2y ago
I was at ISMB [0] and BOSC [1] conferences earlier this month and Venn and Euler diagrams were all over the poster session. Not sure why, but biologists love them! I wrote an implementation of Venn and Euler diagrams for the bioinformatics data visualization application Cytoscape many years ago [2]. Sigh, thick clients in Java haven't aged all that well. [0] - https://www.iscb.org/ismb2024/home https://www.iscb.org/ismb2024/home [1] - https://www.open-bio.org/events/bosc-2024/ https://www.open-bio.org/events/bosc-2024/ [2] - https://apps.cytoscape.org/apps/vennandeulerdiagrams https://apps.cytoscape.org/apps/vennandeulerdiagrams

connorlanewhite 2y ago

This would almost certainly be more difficult, but I'd love if the diagram's relative sizes (optionally) accounted for the size of the sets' data – e.g. if set A and B have 2 items each with zero overlap, it would show two circles of equal size, completely apart from one another

aargh_aargh 2y ago
I've just found this for the exact same reason, for 2-10 sets. The gradient descent is done client-side (Tensorflow.js): https://www.deepvenn.com/ https://www.deepvenn.com/ I've stress-tested it with ~5 sets around ~50k items, comes back in seconds, well under a minute.
- pimlottc 2y ago
  I've used this before, it's a cool idea but it only sort of works. For most non-trivial examples, there will be still be a big discrepancy between the visual area of overlaps and the and the actual element count. Claiming that the graph is area-proportional might actually be more misleading if it's not actually accurate. To improve it, you'd need more ways to mutate the shapes to try to find a solution with less error. E.g. if the circles could be squashed into ellipses, that would probably help. Of course, some higher-order graphs can't be shown with convex shapes at all, so you'd ideally want to be able to pull and stretch areas as needed. It's a hard problem.

leipert 2y ago

In case you need a quick Euler diagram (Venn and Euler are often mixed up), I recently found: https://eulerr.co/ https://eulerr.co/

martypitt 2y ago

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2962/ https://xkcd.com/2962/

Aardwolf 2y ago

The 5-set Venn diagram looks beautiful (and is apparently by Branko Grünbaum), but is a similar symmetric 4-set Venn diagram also possible? Can't find any such example on the internet EDIT: apparently not, from Wikipedia: "David Wilson Henderson showed, in 1963, that the existence of an n-Venn diagram with n-fold rotational symmetry implied that n was a prime number."

philsnow 2y ago

I've had an inkling at various times to make a widget or app or something for players of Diplomacy [0] that uses this visualization to make it easier to see activity in all of your conversations at a glance / select who to talk to. It always ends up being more of a 'fun' idea than something that would actually be useful, though, because the 6-set Venn diagram is so much more difficult to visually parse than just a list of countries in a "To" line. [0] when played with "white press", which is where players can send messages to another player / to multiple other players, and the source of the message is authenticated. This is in contrast to "gray press" where the source is / can be anonymous instead of authenticated and "black press" where the source can be spoofed.

nikolay 2y ago

Kamala Harris approves this service [0]! [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edDnGiJStvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edDnGiJStvs

wonks 2y ago
Dammit, beat me to it!

low_tech_punk 2y ago

Wow, that 6-set visualization feels more asymmetric than 2,3,4,5. Is there an upper bound to the number of sets you can visualize in 2D, and how about 3D?

wonger_ 2y ago
I don't think there's any bound to 2D visualizations. The challenge seems to be constructing symmetric or useful visualizations, which has kept people busy up to n=11 apparently: https://www.combinatorics.org/files/Surveys/ds5/ds5v3-2005/VennEJC.html https://www.combinatorics.org/files/Surveys/ds5/ds5v3-2005/V...

wonger_ 2y ago

Ah, I've made interactive Venn diagrams too! Such a niche topic. Here's a fun example of a 5-venn (give it a few seconds): https://editor.p5js.org/jwong/sketches/vC2x-M_QU https://editor.p5js.org/jwong/sketches/vC2x-M_QU I was investigating visual aids for math tutoring. Interactivity took a bit of work. Here's some alternative Venn implementations: https://wonger.dev/posts/behind-venn#prior-art https://wonger.dev/posts/behind-venn#prior-art

leonim 2y ago

This is cool. I'll mention an alternative way to visualize Venn diagrams are UpSet Plots. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UpSet_plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UpSet_plot [2]: https://upset.app/ https://upset.app/ -- points to multiple implementations.

nlasdhl 2y ago

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