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Dc.js – Dimensional Charting JavaScript Library

dc-js.github.io

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Re: Dc.js – Dimensional Charting JavaScript Library

#11

Post by viggity »

I love dc.js. In fact, I just released a data viz tool (www.machete.io) yesterday that lets lay people create charts/dashboards with dc.js. If you're a dev, you'll obviously have a lot more flexibility by crafting dcjs exactly to your liking, but machete would can help you rapidly prototype.

Example: All 3,025 Penalties in the NFL 2013 Season - http://www.machete.io/board/view/NFL_2013_Penalties/3731630c...

The plan is to use the github model - free public boards, private boards will be a small monthly fee.

Re: Dc.js – Dimensional Charting JavaScript Library

#12

Post by kelv »

webmaven wrote: post #4

DC.js is great, but ironically it's deep integration with crossfilter makes it much more difficult to use with other d3.js-based charting libraries. A team I am on ended up switching to another charting library and handling the data manipulation and filtering with crossfilter ourselves.

Interesting to hear your experience. I'm wondering which library you switched to and how's the experience been with the two separate libraries?

Re: Dc.js – Dimensional Charting JavaScript Library

#13

Post by kelv »

viggity wrote: post #11

I love dc.js. In fact, I just released a data viz tool (www.machete.io) yesterday that lets lay people create charts/dashboards with dc.js. If you're a dev, you'll obviously have a lot more flexibility by crafting dcjs exactly to your liking, but machete would can help you rapidly prototype. Example: All 3,025 Penalties in the NFL 2013 Season - http://www.machete.io/board/view/NFL_2013_Penalties/3731630c... The plan…

Very cool tool. Signed up to the list, and keen to see how the service can simplify the data viz process.

Re: Dc.js – Dimensional Charting JavaScript Library

#14

Post by zenocon »

SimeVidas wrote: post #5

I Google-searched "dimensional charting" to get more information about this term. Guess what? All the results on page 1 are related to Dc.js. Looks like they'll have to write the definition themselves :-P

The use of the word dimension here more than likely stems from dimensional modeling / data warehouse / OLAP design [1], where designing your database in a star/cube schema will allow you to query it easily across many "dimensions".

With crossfilter.js your data gets structured similarly and then bound to d3.js svg charts. dc.js provides the glue between the two to make it easier to work with. This allows you to interactively select part of a chart and immediately see other charts bound to that data get filtered at the same time.

It allows for an interesting way to explore / visualize data.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensional_modeling

Re: Dc.js – Dimensional Charting JavaScript Library

#15

Post by viggity »

kelv wrote: post #13
viggity wrote: post #11

I love dc.js. In fact, I just released a data viz tool (www.machete.io) yesterday that lets lay people create charts/dashboards with dc.js. If you're a dev, you'll obviously have a lot more flexibility by crafting dcjs exactly to your liking, but machete would can help you rapidly prototype. Example: All 3,025 Penalties in the NFL 2013 Season - http://www.machete.io/board/view/NFL_2013_Penalties/3731630c... The plan…

Very cool tool. Signed up to the list, and keen to see how the service can simplify the data viz process.

Thanks! As I've been creating other examples (yet to be released), I've discovered there are always going to be little quirks with the way you want certain data pre-filtered or grouped, aggregated and then grouped again. But in general my time creating my first board went from two weeks (http://stonefinch.com/Projects/Medicare - 19mb download, it'll take a while), down to 1-2 days, then down to 4 hours. Now with machete I can knock out a new board in less than an hour. I typically spend a lot more time just munging together data.

Re: Dc.js – Dimensional Charting JavaScript Library

#16

Post by awjr »

zenocon wrote: post #6

Wow, I am surprised this has never hit HN before. I've been using the combo of dc.js/crossfilter.js/d3.js for a while now to great success. If you need to make interactive charts for things like dashboards -- this is an amazing triplet. The dev team behind dc.js is also super nice and very responsive to questions / prs.

TBH I was kinda surprised when it accepted my submission.

Re: Dc.js – Dimensional Charting JavaScript Library

#18

Post by webmaven »

kelv wrote: post #12
webmaven wrote: post #4

DC.js is great, but ironically it's deep integration with crossfilter makes it much more difficult to use with other d3.js-based charting libraries. A team I am on ended up switching to another charting library and handling the data manipulation and filtering with crossfilter ourselves.

Interesting to hear your experience. I'm wondering which library you switched to and how's the experience been with the two separate libraries?

We switched to C3, and as a charting library it is very nice to use (the declarative approach worked better for us than DC's (and D3's) imperative one) and were able to combine it with crossfilter as well as other libraries for a few missing chart types.

However, we ultimately had to switch again to a solution that was mandated by another part of the organization for IE8 compatibility and internal UI standards.

Re: Dc.js – Dimensional Charting JavaScript Library

#20

Post by gparted »

peterchon wrote: post #17

Could anyone explain the benefit of using Dc.js vs google charts API or d3.js? Crossfilter seems really cool - but since it's another library, what is it that Dc is offering?

One reason: Not everyone has access to those services within the firewall, so it's nice to have this as an option.
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