R

Moving your data from the digital screen to something more physical isn’t as tricky as it seems. Here’s how I did it.

We almost always look at data through a screen. It’s quick and good for exploration. So is there value in making data physical? I played around with a 3-D printer to find out.

Show connections in the circular layout for a more compact presentation.

Make the unit chart less abstract with icons that represent the data, or use this in place of a bar chart.

The usually abstract, qualitative and sometimes quantitative chart type shows relationships. You can make them in R, if you must.

Combining small multiples with the grid layout can make for an intuitive geographic reference.

For when you want to show or compare several distributions but don’t have a lot of space.

Add the vertices. Connect them with edges. Repeat as necessary.

Also known as a polar plot, it is usually not the better option over a standard line chart, but in select cases the method can be useful to show cyclical patterns.

It’s the half cousin of the bubble plot with less overlap and more straight edges.

Something of a cross between a reference table and a map, the state grid provides equal space to each state and a semblance of the country to quickly pick out individual states.

Sometimes it’s useful to animate the multiple lines instead of showing them all at once.

For the times your data represents immediate changes in value.

Add visual weight by using individual items to show counts.