In examining a Mandelbrot Fractal viz created by Zen Master Noah Salvaterra, we found that the visualization is slow. Yes, it involves quite a bit of calculations. By applying simple optimizing techniques, we can accelerate the calculations significantly. By evaluating our optimized viz against Noah's viz on Tableau desktop 10.5, we achieved 250% to 300% accelerations.

How? Initially, I tried to minimize where ever possible the calculations such as the following.

1.Computation of r (calculation per every data mark)

float(mid([u],1,find([u],",")-1))^2+float(mid([u],find([u],",")+1))^2 We suspect that find([u],",") may have been computed twice (depending on Tableau's compiler!). Anyway, we compute it once and create a new field called [Position,].

Happy Saint Valentine's Day! I am a bit old fashioned. Happy V-day sounds like celebrating a victory day.

The commute traffic is really light this morning. I guess that a significant number of people must be taking the day off to spend the day with their loved ones.

Yesterday I created this little mobile viz for the special day. It's all using math functions to draw the picture.

I used Professor Jeffrey Schaffer's method to create the heart shape here.
5

When I worked on this Venn diagram chart, I wanted to make the size of the circles big enough so that they could overlap each other. However the default size card is very limited in size range.

I didn't have a metric to put into the Size card. So I just made up one. By creating a calculated field with a constant like 100 and dropping it in the Size card, suddenly I made the Size range much bigger.

Later on I found that the constant can be anything. 100 or 1 will work.

A question came up in Tableau forum regarding 3-way Venn diagram. I designed a 4-way Venn diagram not so long ago. And thought this should be easy. But the reality is a bit more complex than I thought.

The difference is this one has to be dynamic. The structure is kind of fixed. But the numbers are varying. If it is a one time and static chart, it would have been easy.

Also I would like to find a general approach so that others can replicate.
3

Many years ago, a friend went to grad school to study computer science in the University of Minnesota. I asked him what his research topic was. He said: cellular automata. It sounded interesting as a term, especially "automata". Although he explained it, I didn't understand much. But the term stuck with me along the years.

Recently, I became interested in visualizing math functions [Lorenz Attractor] [Normal Distribution] in Tableau.
Blog Archive
Blog Archive
Loading
Dynamic Views theme. Powered by Blogger. Report Abuse.