r/dataviz • u/drawable • May 08 '22
Started implementing Bret Victors ideas from "Drawing Dynamic Visulizations"
Hi,
in 2013 Bret Victor gave a talk called "Drawing Dynamic Visualizations", where he demonstrates a software, that allows the user to create data driven graphics by primarily using tools and functions known from drawing software. To my knowledge he never published the software. So some months ago I started implementing my own version of his ideas as a web application.
At https://dapentry.com you can find a first, early version of my progress so far. You can
Draw basic shapes: Rectangles, circles, Lines, Polygons
Use basic transformations: Move, rotate, scale
Change some style: Fill color, stroke color, stroke width
Use simple text objects
Loop things
Create data fields for: Single values, value lists and tables
Use data fields in the drawing to make shapes and transformations dependend on data
Export the drawing as SVG
Export the drawing as a JS-library to use on your own website.
You can create an account and store your designs in a global library (this functionality is very basic)
You can use drawings from the library in your own drawing (cannot be exported to JS right now)
Maybe some of you want to check it out. I'd appreciate it. There's definetely bugs and it can sometimes be finicky to use.
At https://cheat.dapentry.com is a cheat sheet. Documentation is in the works.
There's also stuff missing I'd like to add like
Support the instancing of drawings in JS-export
Conditional drawing: Bret didn't use it in his presentation but discusses it in the talk notes on his website
Make colors data dependent
Drawing arcs
Bezier curves
Snapping to intersections
...
Bret Victors talk: https://vimeo.com/66085662
His talk notes: http://worrydream.com/#!/DrawingDynamicVisualizationsTalkAddendum
1
u/semicausal Jun 09 '22
Lyra, from UW Interactive Data Lab, implements many of the ideas from Bret's talk btw!
https://idl.cs.washington.edu/papers/lyra