6 ms·

TauCharts: Data-focused JavaScript charting library

104 points by infinite8s 11y ago

baldeagle 11y ago
What makes it better than Vega? I like how straight forward it is, much like highcharts. I'll explore it more tomorrow.
- taucharts 11y ago
  Actually I personally like the concept of Vega but in my humble opinion the protocol is too academic, implementation goes too slowly so I doubt that Vega suits for real world application.
  - jpatel3 11y ago
    It seems interesting for learning purpose.
hliyan 11y ago
I like this. A 20 second glance at the JavaScript in the first example was all it took for me understand how this works.
honzzz 11y ago
My first impression could not be better - it seems to be simple to use and it looks good. BTW, when you click on the Facebook button at the bottom of the page, the sharing box is under that disqus box - you might want to fiddle with z-index or something.
- taucharts 11y ago
  Thanks for positive feedback. FB button is already fixed
honzzz 11y ago
At the http://taucharts.com http://taucharts.com it says "Free open source D3.js-based library" but in the tutorial at http://api.taucharts.com/tutorials/5min.html http://api.taucharts.com/tutorials/5min.html it says "free for non-commercial use". At GitHub it is sporting Apache License, Version 2.0 which - if I am not mistaken - allows commercial use. Could you please clear that up for me? Am I allowed to use it in commercial products (like a website made for one of my clients) or not? Thanks.
- tablet 11y ago
  It is free for commercial use, the site will be fixed, it is a mistake in the 5min page.
  - honzzz 11y ago
    Great, I see that you already fixed it, thank you - I can add "provider solving problems quickly" to my personal list of reasons to use the app.
awjr 11y ago
I still find charting tools that do not allow interaction with the a group of charts to enable further filtering very lacking. The gold standard I evaluate any charting library against is http://dc-js.github.io/dc.js/ http://dc-js.github.io/dc.js/ My reasoning is that most dashboards should be designed to enable data to tell a story and enable users to interact and create their own story.
- vladminsky 11y ago
  As a taucharts developer, I would give you a "best comment" award :) Actually taucharts is moving to this direction. We want to simplify API for dashboards and composite charts to allow users create "visual stories". Stay tuned :)
- ak39 11y ago
  (Thanks for the link. DC looks awesome.) This is the feature that most users of QlikView, PowerView and Tableau are buying from an end user experience point of view. There are essentially two types of dashboard experiences: 1. Static: a collage of individual visual elements presented as on a single page; 2. Interactive: the same as above but with the capability to do filtering.
- taucharts 11y ago
  As a taucharts developer, I would give you a "best comment" award :) Actually taucharts is moving to this direction. We want to simplify API for dashboards and composite charts to allow users create "visual stories". Stay tuned :)
  - awjr 11y ago
    I think the reason dc.js works so well is that it is tightly coupled to crossfilter (http://square.github.io/crossfilter/ http://square.github.io/crossfilter/). This manages the multi-dimensional views that dc.js leverages to render charts. When developing, the chart bit is usually the easiest bit to implement. Getting the data set into the views you need is where you spend a lot of time. Good luck with the chart engine!
- 11y ago
caractacus 11y ago
What I want with such charting solutions is something to export or copy and paste data from excel and put it into a chart. Just that. No need to manually edit a javascript file or html code beyond customising the appearance once the data is in there. Is this available somewhere?
- revorad 11y ago
  https://plot.ly/ https://plot.ly/
  - acomjean 11y ago
    Some of our biologists use plot.ly. They seem to like it. Those that know it still are using ggplot2 and R. This grammar of graphics plotting library really seems to gold standard of plotting.
- taucharts 11y ago
  We are working on such a solution http://vizydrop.com/ http://vizydrop.com/ Actually it uses Taucharts under the hood.
  - caractacus 11y ago
    Cool. Look forward to hearing more.
- jpatel3 11y ago
  https://tuvalabs.com https://tuvalabs.com Easy to import the data and allows you to visualize the information with various different chart types.
- amk_ 11y ago
  D3 has an importer for tabular data, and looks like Taucharts uses D3 under the hood. That said, it would be cool if there was some kind of composer interface that would allow you to point-at/paste/import data, then save the visualization as a single page HTML snippet - like a small Tiddlywiki for data. - https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki/CSV https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki/CSV - http://tiddlywiki.com/ http://tiddlywiki.com/
alexro 11y ago
Any plans for spider chart? Geo charts?
- tablet 11y ago
  Basic Geo charts are already there, but not documented so far. In future we are going to support all type of visualizations from Grammar of Graphic, so it includes spider chart as well. In fact it is Polar Parallel chart and it will be possible to create it when support of polar coordinates will be added.
  - hadley 11y ago
    Given that you called them facets, I'm going to assume you're familiar with ggplot2. In retrospect, I thinking adding non-Cartesian coordinate systems was a mistake. They are a huge amount of work and only make a handful of charts easier (and most of which, like the radar chart, are not that useful).
jpatel3 11y ago
how much data you can visualize with TauCharts? And on the first glance couldn't see how many different types of chart you can make.
- taucharts 11y ago
  Friendly speaking, we didn't make a performance or optimization research yet. I can only share an experience we've got from using taucharts in our main product - "Targetprocess". So we setup a limit to 1000 rows (+/-50%) which seems to be acceptable performance / usefulness balance to draw a chart within a 0.5 seconds. Also it depends on chart type. Drawing huge facet with more than 100 cells in it can be painful while plain scatter plot on the same data works fine.
- taucharts 11y ago
  Currently taucharts supports scatter, bar (vertical / horizontal), stacked bar (vertical / horizontal), line. Also in beta we have geomap charts with customized map and parallel coordinates. There is a lack of documentation.. but we are working on this problem.
etpinard 11y ago
So, if I get this right, being 'data-friendly' sums up to using data in the form [ {val1: 1, val2: 2}, {val1: 2, val2: 3}] and then mapping x: 'val1', y: 'val2' instead of something like {x: [1,2], y: [2,3]}. The former assumes that the input data comes in a csv or a similar format. This makes charting computed data (à la MATLAB or numpy/matplotlib) rather awkward.
- taucharts 11y ago
  You've got it right. Also I have an idea to make an API that joins data processing and plotting like tauCharts.data(#).aggregate(#).plot(#)
anc84 11y ago
Please don't use the combination of red and green as early option for category colors. Many people have color vision problems and that combinations is very problematic for them.
- taucharts 11y ago
  Thanks for notice, we will think about that. Actually chart API allows to configure color brewer and I hope we will have several themes soon.
infinite8s 11y ago
I wonder how this compares to VarianceCharts - https://variancecharts.com/ https://variancecharts.com/ (besides the license). They both claim to get inspiration from the grammar of graphics.
- taucharts 11y ago
  As far as I understand from quick review the projects are quite similar. But variancecharts don't have facets and not free for commercial use. Difference in API doesn't matter. Taucharts can be wrapped to webcomponent and described on the page using tag as well.
hughes 11y ago
What's most astonishing about all this is that the AMC Rebel gets 0mpg!
- taucharts 11y ago
  I'm happy you noticed that :) Obviously this is a corrupted row in a data so you can try "exclude" feature of tooltip plugin to remove this record from the chart in one click
__float 11y ago
This is a rather minor nitpick, but I think the documentation and TauCharts website as a whole could use some editing by a native English speaker. That said, the content and goals for the project really are quite cool! I'm looking forward to where TauCharts can go in the future.
- pc86 11y ago
  If your goal is to express ideas and get someone to contribute/download/convert, I don't think that's a minor nitpick at all. It was pretty painful to read certain parts.
  - taucharts 11y ago
    Really sad to hear that :/ but you right. Will improve documentation for sure
  - taucharts 11y ago
    As well documentation for taucharts is open sourced: https://github.com/TargetProcess/taucharts-docs https://github.com/TargetProcess/taucharts-docs. You can help a project.. just send pull requests with corrected grammar.

104 points by infinite8s 11y ago

baldeagle 11y ago

What makes it better than Vega? I like how straight forward it is, much like highcharts. I'll explore it more tomorrow.

taucharts 11y ago
Actually I personally like the concept of Vega but in my humble opinion the protocol is too academic, implementation goes too slowly so I doubt that Vega suits for real world application.
- jpatel3 11y ago
  It seems interesting for learning purpose.

hliyan 11y ago

I like this. A 20 second glance at the JavaScript in the first example was all it took for me understand how this works.

honzzz 11y ago

My first impression could not be better - it seems to be simple to use and it looks good. BTW, when you click on the Facebook button at the bottom of the page, the sharing box is under that disqus box - you might want to fiddle with z-index or something.

taucharts 11y ago
Thanks for positive feedback. FB button is already fixed

honzzz 11y ago

At the http://taucharts.com http://taucharts.com it says "Free open source D3.js-based library" but in the tutorial at http://api.taucharts.com/tutorials/5min.html http://api.taucharts.com/tutorials/5min.html it says "free for non-commercial use". At GitHub it is sporting Apache License, Version 2.0 which - if I am not mistaken - allows commercial use. Could you please clear that up for me? Am I allowed to use it in commercial products (like a website made for one of my clients) or not? Thanks.

tablet 11y ago
It is free for commercial use, the site will be fixed, it is a mistake in the 5min page.
- honzzz 11y ago
  Great, I see that you already fixed it, thank you - I can add "provider solving problems quickly" to my personal list of reasons to use the app.

awjr 11y ago

I still find charting tools that do not allow interaction with the a group of charts to enable further filtering very lacking. The gold standard I evaluate any charting library against is http://dc-js.github.io/dc.js/ http://dc-js.github.io/dc.js/ My reasoning is that most dashboards should be designed to enable data to tell a story and enable users to interact and create their own story.

vladminsky 11y ago
As a taucharts developer, I would give you a "best comment" award :) Actually taucharts is moving to this direction. We want to simplify API for dashboards and composite charts to allow users create "visual stories". Stay tuned :)
ak39 11y ago
(Thanks for the link. DC looks awesome.) This is the feature that most users of QlikView, PowerView and Tableau are buying from an end user experience point of view. There are essentially two types of dashboard experiences: 1. Static: a collage of individual visual elements presented as on a single page; 2. Interactive: the same as above but with the capability to do filtering.
taucharts 11y ago
As a taucharts developer, I would give you a "best comment" award :) Actually taucharts is moving to this direction. We want to simplify API for dashboards and composite charts to allow users create "visual stories". Stay tuned :)
- awjr 11y ago
  I think the reason dc.js works so well is that it is tightly coupled to crossfilter (http://square.github.io/crossfilter/ http://square.github.io/crossfilter/). This manages the multi-dimensional views that dc.js leverages to render charts. When developing, the chart bit is usually the easiest bit to implement. Getting the data set into the views you need is where you spend a lot of time. Good luck with the chart engine!
11y ago

caractacus 11y ago

What I want with such charting solutions is something to export or copy and paste data from excel and put it into a chart. Just that. No need to manually edit a javascript file or html code beyond customising the appearance once the data is in there. Is this available somewhere?

revorad 11y ago
https://plot.ly/ https://plot.ly/
- acomjean 11y ago
  Some of our biologists use plot.ly. They seem to like it. Those that know it still are using ggplot2 and R. This grammar of graphics plotting library really seems to gold standard of plotting.
taucharts 11y ago
We are working on such a solution http://vizydrop.com/ http://vizydrop.com/ Actually it uses Taucharts under the hood.
- caractacus 11y ago
  Cool. Look forward to hearing more.
jpatel3 11y ago
https://tuvalabs.com https://tuvalabs.com Easy to import the data and allows you to visualize the information with various different chart types.
amk_ 11y ago
D3 has an importer for tabular data, and looks like Taucharts uses D3 under the hood. That said, it would be cool if there was some kind of composer interface that would allow you to point-at/paste/import data, then save the visualization as a single page HTML snippet - like a small Tiddlywiki for data. - https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki/CSV https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki/CSV - http://tiddlywiki.com/ http://tiddlywiki.com/

alexro 11y ago

Any plans for spider chart? Geo charts?

tablet 11y ago
Basic Geo charts are already there, but not documented so far. In future we are going to support all type of visualizations from Grammar of Graphic, so it includes spider chart as well. In fact it is Polar Parallel chart and it will be possible to create it when support of polar coordinates will be added.
- hadley 11y ago
  Given that you called them facets, I'm going to assume you're familiar with ggplot2. In retrospect, I thinking adding non-Cartesian coordinate systems was a mistake. They are a huge amount of work and only make a handful of charts easier (and most of which, like the radar chart, are not that useful).

jpatel3 11y ago

how much data you can visualize with TauCharts? And on the first glance couldn't see how many different types of chart you can make.

taucharts 11y ago
Friendly speaking, we didn't make a performance or optimization research yet. I can only share an experience we've got from using taucharts in our main product - "Targetprocess". So we setup a limit to 1000 rows (+/-50%) which seems to be acceptable performance / usefulness balance to draw a chart within a 0.5 seconds. Also it depends on chart type. Drawing huge facet with more than 100 cells in it can be painful while plain scatter plot on the same data works fine.
taucharts 11y ago
Currently taucharts supports scatter, bar (vertical / horizontal), stacked bar (vertical / horizontal), line. Also in beta we have geomap charts with customized map and parallel coordinates. There is a lack of documentation.. but we are working on this problem.

etpinard 11y ago

So, if I get this right, being 'data-friendly' sums up to using data in the form [ {val1: 1, val2: 2}, {val1: 2, val2: 3}] and then mapping x: 'val1', y: 'val2' instead of something like {x: [1,2], y: [2,3]}. The former assumes that the input data comes in a csv or a similar format. This makes charting computed data (à la MATLAB or numpy/matplotlib) rather awkward.

taucharts 11y ago
You've got it right. Also I have an idea to make an API that joins data processing and plotting like tauCharts.data(#).aggregate(#).plot(#)

anc84 11y ago

Please don't use the combination of red and green as early option for category colors. Many people have color vision problems and that combinations is very problematic for them.

taucharts 11y ago
Thanks for notice, we will think about that. Actually chart API allows to configure color brewer and I hope we will have several themes soon.

infinite8s 11y ago

I wonder how this compares to VarianceCharts - https://variancecharts.com/ https://variancecharts.com/ (besides the license). They both claim to get inspiration from the grammar of graphics.

taucharts 11y ago
As far as I understand from quick review the projects are quite similar. But variancecharts don't have facets and not free for commercial use. Difference in API doesn't matter. Taucharts can be wrapped to webcomponent and described on the page using tag as well.

hughes 11y ago

What's most astonishing about all this is that the AMC Rebel gets 0mpg!

taucharts 11y ago
I'm happy you noticed that :) Obviously this is a corrupted row in a data so you can try "exclude" feature of tooltip plugin to remove this record from the chart in one click

__float 11y ago

This is a rather minor nitpick, but I think the documentation and TauCharts website as a whole could use some editing by a native English speaker. That said, the content and goals for the project really are quite cool! I'm looking forward to where TauCharts can go in the future.

pc86 11y ago
If your goal is to express ideas and get someone to contribute/download/convert, I don't think that's a minor nitpick at all. It was pretty painful to read certain parts.
- taucharts 11y ago
  Really sad to hear that :/ but you right. Will improve documentation for sure
- taucharts 11y ago
  As well documentation for taucharts is open sourced: https://github.com/TargetProcess/taucharts-docs https://github.com/TargetProcess/taucharts-docs. You can help a project.. just send pull requests with corrected grammar.