rCharts Parcoords x Simpsons x Blocks

Interactive Parallel Coordinates with Multiple Colours

For my research project, I need a tool to visualise results from multi-objective optimisations. Below is one of my early attempts using base R and parcoord in the MASS package, I have no problem using them for publication. However, these charts are all static. For a practical decision support tool (something I am working on), I need the charts to be interactive so that users can adjust the range/thresholds in each parameter and narrow down the things to display in real time.

Many thanks to Ken (timelyportfolio) who kindly pointed me to his code examples. Based on that, I developed a prototype version of the interactive parallel coordinates plot with multiple colours (as shown above). OK, the values in the chart are totally unrelated to my research - I just used the 'Theoph' dataset in R for testing purposes. Yet, this is a much needed exercise to see if I can use rCharts parallel coordinates for my research. The answer, of course, is YES. It also works with my customised colour palette too (using Bart Simpson this time)!

Click here to view the he Interactive Version

Here is the R code for the above chart:

Showing your rCharts on bl.ocks.org

In the process of making this plot, I also discovered how to display rCharts (d3, html or practically any code) on Mike Bostock's site "bl.ocks.org". If you haven't seen his site, do check this out. It is one of the coolest things on earth.

I wanted to have a gallery like that too ... but I didn't know how. I used to think that Ramnath and Ken must have bought Mike a beer so that they can have their stuff hosted on bl.ocks.org (see bl.ocks.org/ramnathv and bl.ocks.org/timelyportfolio). I was very wrong, everyone with a GitHub account can do it. All you need are your imagination (and some gists). The site automatically pulls your gists and displays them as beautiful blocks gallery.

In order to display your cool rCharts on bl.ocks.org, you can either:

1. publish the rCharts to gist using the '$publish' function (e.g. r1$publish('name.of.gist', host = 'gist')  where r1 is the rCharts object)
2. save the rCharts as a stand-alone HTML (e.g. r1$save('index.html', cdn = TRUE)) and then include it in a gist.

For optimal display, I would recommend setting your rCharts size to 960 x 500 (same as the display size on bl.ocks.org). You can also include a 'README.md' file and a 'thumbnail.png' to provide more information. I think the best resolution for the thumbnail is 230 x 120 (about the same aspect ratio as full display). You will need to manually push the png file (see this post for more details).

So here are the parallel coodinates plot as shown on bl.ocks.org ...

... and my gallery at bl.ocks.org/woobe

Latest on Colour Palette Generator

First, let me point you to Russell Dinnage's blog post. It is easily one of the finest R blog posts I've read so far. All these colours and graphs. Wow! It's yet another #RCanDoThat moment for me (so good it needs a hashtag).

So many thanks to his effort and cool ideas, we continue to add more functions to the rPlotter package. It is also a great opportunity for us to better understand the pull/merge GitHub mechanism.

Credits

Again, I would like to thank Ken for his help (not only this time but many times before this on visualisation stuff) as well as Ramnath, Mike and Russell.

A Recap of the Last Couple Months (Part 1)

It's been a while. I know. I had hoped to finish this a lot earlier and to make my regular contributions to the Stream's Stream. Oh well ... better late than never :)

STREAM Challenge Week (Morpeth, 7-12 July)

Back in July, (nearly) all research engineers from STREAM spent a couple days in Morpeth together. I am only going to show you some photos here. You can find out more about the event from my fellow STREAM-ers Jack Bloodworth and Sarah Cotterill.

Kielder Water and Forest Park

Walking around Morpeth

Carlisle Park - It's Picnic Time!

The Beautiful Morpeth Stepping Stones

STREAM Conference at Newcastle University

Inter-Cohort Rounders' Championship Tournament

Group Presentations for the Morpeth Flooding Challenge 

Dinner and Awards Presentation

STREAM Group Photo at Longhirst Hall

35th IAHR World Congress (Chengdu, 8-13 September)

For the very first time, I travelled back to my home country for work. After a rather busy 2012, I cut down significantly on travel and conferences this year. This conference was my only international duty (well, excluding the Institute of Water Annual Conference in Edinburgh which I travelled from England to Scotland) this year. The IAHR conference was definitely one of the biggest conferences I had ever been to with over 1400 attendances gathering in the Chengdu Century City International Convention Center.

On the first day of conference, I met with XP Solutions' distributor in China - Ewaters. We discussed some potential case studies based on projects in China and agreed on the dates for the post-conference software workshops in Shanghai.

Opening Ceremony. Looking at the back of Professors Dawei Han and Dragan Savic (my past and current supervisor) - what are the chances?

After the technical sessions in the afternoon, we were all invited to join Prof. Roger Falconer (IAHR President) for the president's reception where he welcomed everyone to the congress. It was a very interesting and entertaining evening with stunning face-changing performance by the local Sichuanese opera.

IAHR President's Reception at Shunxing Teahouse

On the third day, I had chosen to visit the Dujiangyan Irrigation Project for the in-congress technical tour. It is one of the oldest irrigation systems in the world and an excellent example of ancient Chinese science and engineering. The project has successfully prevented flooding in Chengdu ever since its completion about 2200 years ago. Simply astonishing!

In-Congress Technical Tour - Dujianyan Irrigation Project

Congress Dinner

On a more serious note, I suited up and delivered a presentation on the last day of the conference. The presentation was a summary of my progress so far and a prologue to the post-conference software workshops. It generated some interests from the Hong Kong Drainage Services Department's representatives. Afterwards, we discussed the possibilities of applying my work in Hong Kong and they had kindly invited me to attend their conference in Hong Kong next year.

As usual, flooding the crowd with colourful visuals.

After the conference, I had a short window to explore the city. (Making the most of it - right, Sarah?)

Wu Hou Shrine Museum

Jin Li, The Ancient Chinese Machine Gun and the Inevitable Invasion of Starbucks

Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding

Chengdu at night - Tianfu Square (a Yin Yang from above!)

Overall, I think the IAHR conference was an invaluable experience for me. It allowed me to connect with the people there and to gain a much better understanding of the situation, challenges and needs in China - which means a lot to me as it is my home country. I would also like to thank STREAM and my supervisor Dragan for giving me the opportunities to attend different conferences in last couple years.

Next Stop: Shanghai

XPDRAINAGE workshops in Shanghai and life after the China trip. Watch this space!

Quantifying Green Values of Drainage Systems

This is the very first blog post about my research project. Although I am not going to write much about it this time, I do have a Prezi presentation here. Enjoy!