ISO Data Management, Graphing, and Visualization Tools
Andy Glew
A little while back I posted in search of Data Management, Graphing, and Data Visualization tools.
Off and on in the past week I have been evaluating such tools, reading the glossies,
running the demos, waiting for sales and technical support to tell me that their package
does not do what I hoped it would do...
I thought that I would share the results of this evaluation of existing software packages
with y'all.
$Header: /u/g/l/glew/work/data-exploration-tool-search/RCS/evaluation-notes,v 1.4 1998/02/24 22:54:10 glew Exp $
Evaluation of Data Management, Graphing, and Exploration Tools
==============================================================
BOTTOM LINE: there is no single answer, unfortunately.
SPSS seems to be the nicest Windows enabled data management, stats,
and graphing tool. However, it has distinct limitations when it comes
to data exploration; specifically, it can't do "mouse based zoom", or
any of the other nice things that make data exploration quicker.
DataDesk is the nicest interactive data exploration tool, has mouse
based zoom and a whole slew of other interactive features, but it has
only an extremely limited repertoire of graphs, plots, and charts.
JMP does more graphs than DataDesk, and is reasonably interactive, has
mouse based zoom, but not much more - but it cannot do the most common
graph types in my field (e.g. clustered bar graphs, let alone
clustered stacked bar graphs).
None of these tools seem to do the "advanced" graphs, such as
clustered stacked bar charts.
In an ideal world I'd buy SPSS and Datadesk, and also a good "batch
mode" package such as MatLAB to draw the really sophisticated stuff.
Requirements
============
As I go through this process, I am learning more about what
I want in a tool.
Chart Interaction
mouse based zoom
draw a box around some data points on the screen,
and have axes adjusted so that box fills full screen.
Many (most) tools do not have a mouse based zoom,
but instead require axis limits to be typed
into a dialog box, or worse.
Occasionally hides as a magnifying glasstool,
or as lasso or point selection.
select/query
select points, and be told
Chart Types
MUST
axis types
{linear,log} x, {linear,log} y
MUST
{scatter, lines {w/wo symbols}} multiple datasets
editable colors, symbols, linestyles, etc., assumed
bar {vertical, horizontal}
clustered bar
stacked bar
stacked clustered bar
WANT
ability to add comments (arrows, text, etc.) to charts
to explain features.
NICE
overlay arbitrary graphs on top of each other
3D graphs - 2D arry of bars, etc.
thumbnails
small multiples
(typically of scatterplots)
Survey: I scanned quickly over the last volume of ISCA and MICRO
conference journals to see what sorts of graphs are in use.
Briefly: Micro97 ISCA97
XY Scatter 7 6
XY line graphs 30 103
Simple Bar Graphs 7 2
Clustered Bar graphs 73 38
Cluster Cluster Bar 8 0
Stacked Bar graphs 22 13
Clustered Stacked Bars 20 8
3D surface plots 2 0
Data Management:
MUST
Import arbitrary textfiles in some reasonable
format (CSV,TSV,WSV, etc.)
WANT
Import from a pipe, or through a program filter
- so that can write a program to extract and reformat
data from the database of a different program
(and thus avoid the problems of proliferating data formats,
temporary files, etc.)
NICE
Import Excel.
OLE automation on import.
WANT
Ability to embed comments in a file - so that
can track data provenance, etc.
WANT
No limit on points in dataset - e.g. I have prepared
graphs with 200,000 points in the past.
However, it is often hard to verify, from demoware,
what the capabilities are.
Output:
MUST:
EPS (Emeddable Post Script)
OR MUST:
Windows objects that can be embedded in Word
(OLE automation).
MUST:
Finally produce Postscript viewable by Ghostview
(for acceptance by conferences).
Products
========
Evaluated
---------
DataDesk
Good magazine reviews
Evaluation: crippleware demo downloaded from web
Graph Interaction: pretty good
MUST(OK): graphical zoom
Seems to be the most interactive package that I have tried so far.
Overall, has the nicest forms of interaction with the graph I have seen.
Not only does it have mouse based zoom (box based),
but it also has the ability to drag the graph around, changing
i.e. changing xmin,xmax,ymin,ymax without changing the scale,
and other interactive features.
Graph Types: poor
MUST(FAILS): LIMITED GRAPH TYPES
Unfortunately, while it seems to be very interactive,
it does not seem to have a good selection of graph/plot/chart types.
For example, its concept of lineplots is to plot the
variable as Y against the case number as X. I.e. it does not
have XY lineplots.
Similarly, Datadesk's barcharts are restricted in a similar manner,
and understand nothing of clustering, let alone stacking, etc.
While I might purchase DataDesk just for data exploration of scatterplots,
I definitely cannot consider it as the answer to my graphing needs.
Particularly not at its cost (600$ or so).
Klugey User Interface: originally MAC based,
not at all natural feeling in the Windows environment.
SPSS
Cost: 175$, as a "student gradpack".
Comments:
SPSS 7 and 8 look reasonably good on Windows
- much better than the old interface, which carried
over from mainframes.
However, still have access to the old command language
- can run from command line, or within a procedure automation tool -
which is good.
All of the SPSS products (SPSS, Sigmaplot, etc.)
seem to have good tutorials and help.
Database
still SPSS sequential files
???? unclear if can do a JOIN
Pivoting table editor - VERY GOOD!!!
Graphs/Charts - a reasonable variety of graphs.
Q: can it do clustered bars, stacked bars, clustered stacked bars?
BAD: doesn't seem to be able to do mouse based zooms.
SPSS/Deltagraph
Cost: 295$
Recently acquired company.
http://www.spss.com/software/DeltaGraph/
Comment:
Seems to be the "PowerPoint" of PC graphing packages
- produces sexy looking graphs, fancy backgrounds, etc.
Seems to be recommended by many social science departments
(psychology, demographics).
Chart Types
2-D Charts Area, Area %, Bar, Bar-Stacked,
Bar-Floating,* Bar-Segmentation,* Bar-Stacked
Segmentation,* Bubble, Build-Up,*
Build-Up-Stacked,* Column, Column-Stacked,
Column-Segmentation,* Column-Stacked
Segmentation,* Column-Floating,* Column-XY,*
Combination, Contour Fill, Contour Line, Double X
axis, Double XY axes, Double Y axis, High-Low,
High Low Open Close (Candlestick and Whisker),
Line, Line-Filled, Line-XY, Line-Paired XY,
Pictograph, Pie, Pie-Donut, Pie-Multiple, Pie-Stacked,
Polar, Quality Control X bar r, Quality Control X bar
s, Quality Control p, Quality Control n, Quality
Control u, Quality Control c, Radar, Range, Scatter,
Scatter-Paired XY, Scatter (with optional droplines),
Spider, Step, Table, Ternary, Ternary %, Time Line,
Vector-Gridded, Vector-Radius/Angle, Vector-XY,
XYZ Contour Fill, and XYZ Contour Line.
Text Charts Bullet, Organization, Table.
3-D Charts Area, Column, Ribbon, Scatter,
Scatterline, Surface Fill, Surface Line, Wireframe,
True 3-D XYZ Surface Fill, True 3-D XYZ Surface
Line.
Statistical Charts Histogram, Ogive, Pareto, Box
Plot, Survival.*
Doesn't seem to have clustered stacked bars (as are a fad
in computer architecture papers recently).
UNKNOWN: mouse based zoom?
Data management
Limit: 32,000 points per data sert
MUST(OK): text files.
Unclear if interaction with Excell, etc., is by
producing files, or by OLE automation.
SAS + SAS/GRAPH
Cost:
no student price
150$ departmental
>1000$ industrial
very complicated and particular licencing
- even though Intel has a licence,
I can't install it on my office machine
because I can't access the licence server
Comments:
Very clunky mainframe like interface.
Lots of typing in old command language.
Poor tutorial and help.
Charts:
MUST (FAILS):
Limited types, it seems.
They even use line printer examples!!!!!
MUST (FAILS) (Supposed to be OK, not verified):
Mouse Based Zoom:
I tried to find it, could,
although later SAS/GRAP technical support
said it is in
"Edit/Graphics/Magnify Tool".
=> lousy help and tutorials if I couldn't find this!!!
SAS/JMP
Recently acquired company
=> SAS will probably absorb its function into main SAS.
Evaluation
Demo: crippleware
Poor help, no tutorial to speak of.
Chart Interaction:
MUST (OK): has mouse based zoom (magnify toll)
(BUG: selecting magnify tool from right click menu is broken;
only works when selected from toolbar)
Nice GUI for spinning 3D
Chart:
MUST (FAILS):
Limited graph types.
MISSING clustered bars, stacked bars, etc.
Has scattergraphs - are in help file
- but I could not find how to make them.
XMGR
Cost: freeware
Chart Interaction:
MUST (OK): mouse based zooming
Chart:
MUST (FAILS):
Limited graph types
MISSING clustered bars, etc.
(so write them yourself...)
DEVise
University of Wisconsin project
Cost: freeware?
Written in TCL/TK, hence supposedly extensible,
Limited functionality SQL database underneath it.
(will be extended to Oracle?)
Chart Interaction:
MUST (FAILS): no mouse based zoom.
Chart:
MUST (FAILS):
Limited graph types.
Very poor quality graphs.
Sigmaplot
From SPSS
Demo online
NICE!!!!: Tufte macro package
Evaluation:
demo online
very badly behaved demo: requires admin to install, etc.
good help and tutorial (true for all SPSS products)
Data Management
NICE (OK): OLE automation
MUST (OK): EPS output (GIFF, etc.)
Limits: 16K columns by 64K rows
Chart Interaction
NICE (FAILS): doesn't seem to have "click on a point
to query" - i.e. doesn't highlight that
point in dataset (at least not trivially)
MUST (FAILS): doesn't have "mose based zoom".
Actually, has "mouse based magnify",
but it just magnifies, doesn't redraw axes.
Chart types:
lots of types, including (more on web page):
note that it has grouped bar and stacked bar
Q: does it have grouped stacked bar?
2D
Scatter - 14 types
Line - 4 types
Scatter and Line - 10 types
Step - 8 types
Vertical Bar - 2 types
Horizontal Bar - 2 types
Vertical, Grouped Bar - 2
types
Horizontal, Grouped Bar -
2 types
Vertical, Stacked Bar
Horizontal, Stacked Bar
Box - 2 types
Polar - 3 types
Histograms - 6 types
Ternary - 3 types
Time-Series
Bubble
Pie
Control Charts
Needle
Quadrant
Population
3D
Multiple, intersecting plots
with hidden line removal,
smooth or discrete shading,
transparent or opaque fills,
and light source shading
3D rotation
Perspective preview
Scatter
Bar
3D line - trajectory and
waterfall
Mesh
Contour
S-Plus
From Mathsoft
Cost: 500$
Checked out web page. Extensible embedded language.
Website with lots of S-plus libraries.
MUST(Fails?): mouse based zoom
As is usual from the silly demos online, cannot tell if
it has mouse based zoom.
MUST(OK): clustered bars, scatter
Mathsoft also sells:
Axum - 200$ - graphing
Mathcad - 130$ - misc stuff
Axum
From Mathsoft
Cost: 200$
MUST(Fails?) Mouse based zoom
As is usual from the silly demos online, cannot tell if
it has mouse based zoom. My guess is not.
MUST(OK): clustered bars
Basically cannot evaluate it from its demos or literature
Statistica
Evaluated: Statistica 5.1 demo
MUST(FAILS?): no mouse based zoom
Actually has a mouse based magnify,
but it doesn't rescale or reaxis - instead
it is just a visual magnify
Overall feels very cluttered - not a good UI.
Competent techsupport, though
Systat
Cost: 185$ gradpak.
MUST(OK-50%as mouse based zoom
Specifically, can lasso or otherwise select points,
and replot so that only those points are visible.
Unfortunately, the selection tools are available only for scatterplots.
Wasn't able to find out how to unselect data without
reloading the whole bloody data set.
(The demo says "Be careful to unselect, or else you
will be restricted to the selected points.)
Looks possible, but looks like it will have some kluges
that make it awkward to use.
Statview
From SPSS
Demo in the mail
MUST(Fails): does not have mouse based zoom
(reported by SPSS sales)
Excel
Microsoft
Although everybody tells me "you can do that in Excel",
I am reasonably certain that you cannot.
MUST(FAILS): no mouse based zoom
Reasonable sekection of graph types.
Can only handle 32K data points.
dataplot
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/software/dataplot
cost: freeware?
Recommended by net.folk
command driven.
somewhat powerful language
doesn't seem to have mouse interface
F77
lots of nice graphs
SEMATECH standard
Scilab
INRIA/France
Cost: freeware.
Web page: http://www-rocq.inria.fr/scilab/
Seems to be command driven (based on reading the web page).
Seems to be comparable to MATlab in abilities.
To be evaluated
---------------
Minitab
Chart Interaction
MUST (FAILS?): no mouse based zoom.
Charts:
MUST (OK): lots of graph types,
language easily allows customizing,
lots of examples in tutorial
MATLAB
Data Management:
MUST (FAILS?):
Only textual import seems to be M-files,
which are trivially related to ascii text files,
but still not the same.
See: Octave
Octave:
MATLAB free clone?
IPL
Cost: freeware?
Charts: MUST (OK) lots of graph types
Chart interaction: MUST (FAILS): batch mode only
IDL
A Fortran like language advertised in IEEE magazines
as producing lots of neat graphs.
xplot
obsolete???
Mathematica
Barely possible.
Net.folk say difficult to explore data with.
Good internal language - anything possible.
Slow for large datasets?
Statsoft
HiQ
Demo in the mail
S
old stat package (from AT&T, if I remember correctly)
haven't seen anyone using it.
see: R
R
S free clone
Mineset
vendor: SGI
Highly recommended by net.folk "could do complicated data
exploration in only five clicks"
cost: 20,000$
host: SGI
JGraph
unclear what this is.
net.searching yields several shareware Java Graph tool references.
Other
-----
MySQL
http://www.tcx.se
cost: freeware?
database
MiniSQL
cost: freeware?
database
Michael Lyle
> A little while back I posted in search of Data Management, Graphing, and
Data Visualization tools.
>
> Off and on in the past week I have been evaluating such tools, reading
the glossies,
> running the demos, waiting for sales and technical support to tell me
that their package
> does not do what I hoped it would do...
>
> I thought that I would share the results of this evaluation of existing
software packages
> with y'all.
If you decide to roll your own, the X/Motif based XRT graph widget (and all
his cousins in the PDS suite) is a great starting point. It meets most of
your criteria for the graphing part, and is not performance and size
limited. You still have to do the statistics, but you could probably
interface your own stuff to one of the standard stat packages. Using
X-Windows is no easy task, but you get exactly what you want, and in an
environment that is reliable and portable.
I have no affilitation with klg, just a satisfied customer. However, the
one or two times I had to use their tech support, they were very
unresponsive. YMMV.
--
Michael
Michael Lyle (ml...@wco.com)
Andy Glew
Life is like this....
I think that I have finished my (vain) search for data management, graphing,
and exploration tools, when a new one comes to my attention, first by somebody
responding to my "final" post, and then in the form of an ad in Scientific Computing
and Automation magazine.
I just downloaded the demo for Origin 5.0 from www.microcal.com.
It passes all of the tests that I can perform on the demo with flying colours.
My "bottom line" section of my notes now reads:
Wed Feb 25 1998: NEW BOTTOM LINE: Origin 5.0 seesm to be the winner!
It has the chart interaction features I want, e.g. mouse based zoom.
It has most of the chart types I want built in.
Its extension language seems to be able to build the chart
types that are missing - e.g. clustered bar
- at least, such chart types appear in their gallery of examples.
It integrates well with Excel and Windows NT.
Origin 5.0 Professional appears to allow extensions,
such as allowing to read new input file formats.
Not clear, however, whether it is flexible enough to
allow filters to be specified.
More evaluation seems to need to be done by usage. So I'm
going to buy it... (damn, it's expensive!).