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Flame Graphs vs Tree Maps vs Sunburst (2017)

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Re: Flame Graphs vs Tree Maps vs Sunburst (2017)

#31

Post by theodpHN »

tanelpoder wrote: post #25
trevor-e wrote: post #15

The treemap screenshot doesn't look correct. Nearly all charting libs (like Apache Echarts) will group nodes with a heading name, so not sure why they claim it would be hard to notice the "drivers" node. I guess in that screenshot, sure, but that looks like just a bad implementation of a treemap. Maybe this was the case back in 2017? Flame graphs I have a love/hate relationship with. The hierarchy is very useful, but…

At an old startup attempt we once created a nested hierarchy metrics visualization chart that I later ended up calling Bookshelf Charts, as some of the boxes filled with with smaller boxes looked like a bookshelf (if you tilted your head 90 degrees). Something between FlameGraphs and Treemaps. We also picked “random” colors for aesthetics, but it was interactive enough so you could choose a heat map color for the plo…

Very neat. And if anyone from Plotly should happen to be reading this, a compact format like this might be an interesting option for Icicle Charts, akin to how the compact, indented version of Excel pivot tables saves horizontal space over the "classic" format pivot table.

Re: Flame Graphs vs Tree Maps vs Sunburst (2017)

#33

Post by trevor-e »

tanelpoder wrote: post #25
trevor-e wrote: post #15

The treemap screenshot doesn't look correct. Nearly all charting libs (like Apache Echarts) will group nodes with a heading name, so not sure why they claim it would be hard to notice the "drivers" node. I guess in that screenshot, sure, but that looks like just a bad implementation of a treemap. Maybe this was the case back in 2017? Flame graphs I have a love/hate relationship with. The hierarchy is very useful, but…

At an old startup attempt we once created a nested hierarchy metrics visualization chart that I later ended up calling Bookshelf Charts, as some of the boxes filled with with smaller boxes looked like a bookshelf (if you tilted your head 90 degrees). Something between FlameGraphs and Treemaps. We also picked “random” colors for aesthetics, but it was interactive enough so you could choose a heat map color for the plo…

Thanks for sharing, that is a neat in-between.

Re: Flame Graphs vs Tree Maps vs Sunburst (2017)

#34

Post by alanbernstein »

Espressosaurus wrote: post #23
alanbernstein wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do treemaps suck?

It's not as straightforward to compare area as sorted length. Look at the example in the link and try to make sense of it.

I do agree that both styles of treemap shown in the article are inadequate for various reasons, but I don't think that applies to treemaps as a whole.

Re: Flame Graphs vs Tree Maps vs Sunburst (2017)

#35

Post by tuetuopay »

trevor-e wrote: post #15

The treemap screenshot doesn't look correct. Nearly all charting libs (like Apache Echarts) will group nodes with a heading name, so not sure why they claim it would be hard to notice the "drivers" node. I guess in that screenshot, sure, but that looks like just a bad implementation of a treemap. Maybe this was the case back in 2017? Flame graphs I have a love/hate relationship with. The hierarchy is very useful, but…

Yes, pretty much all treemap disk space tools I've used will perform color gradient grouping on boxes, with directories fitting in larger boxes. The box may not be drawn, but the inner boxes will align, visually making a larger box. Also, mouse hovers go a long way.

Like, one just has to look at the qdirstat screenshot at https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat. On the bottom-right corner, there are visually distinct boxes of sub-boxes that guide the eye towards a logical set of files.

Re: Flame Graphs vs Tree Maps vs Sunburst (2017)

#36

Post by knallfrosch »

fourthark wrote: post #18

It's not that hard to fix the area problem with sunburst charts, by decreasing the radius for outer rings. E.g. https://github.com/vasturiano/sunburst-chart

This fixes the main problem, but:

Treemaps are indifferent to "unknown" or "unlabeled" nodes. Area is disk space.

Whereas the simple act of labelling a node adds another outer ring arc to the sunburst (thus more coloured area), even though the underlying truth hasn't changed.

Re: Flame Graphs vs Tree Maps vs Sunburst (2017)

#38

Post by marginalia_nu »

fourthark wrote: post #18

It's not that hard to fix the area problem with sunburst charts, by decreasing the radius for outer rings. E.g. https://github.com/vasturiano/sunburst-chart

The larger problem is that humans are kinda shit at eyeballing the relative size of areas. You can generally tell if one is larger than the other, most people just can't estimate how much larger one area is to another with any sort of accuracy (which is why area comparison graphs are often used when it's desirable to minimize the perceived differences).
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