In my short career doing data visualization with Power BI, I have always desired the flexibility to do more with my visuals.
So when I came across a demo for Deneb in a meetup last year, I practically lost my head.
And when I finally got my hands on the visual I was not disappointed.
Deneb, as very well described here, uses Vega and Vega-Lite, a visualisation grammar. I didn’t spend much time reading up on the documentation before I started – I’m way too impatient a person. I mean who reads the instructions on the IKEA manuals anyway?
Chart 1 – Horizontal diverging chart
I had a number of charts that I had been busting to create. So I headed over the Vega-Lite template gallery to pick out some examples that looked close enough in design.
I picked up a pyramid, pasted the template into the editor, mapped the field names then BOOM! Will you look at that it just worked!
Okay, okay, so now it’s time to read the documentation. I wanted to add a legend, with a quick search I was able to find how to do that. I made additional cosmetic tweaks here and there which were intuitive enough to do.
Eeeek how exciting.
Chart 2 – Line chart with text labels
The second project was also fairly straight forward.
I began with a simple line graph
Layered a rectangle mark underneath
Updated the grid styling and added colour coordinated points
I next added labels and the ability to highlight values upon hovering over the legend
Magic!
Chart 3 – KPI Cards
The next project began as a desire for more control over KPI style visuals. I often find I have to layer visuals to get the features I want for KPIs, which creates unforgiving navigation experiences.
I didn’t spend too much time on these visual types, but was very excited by the flexibility I had.
Chart 4 – Image Plot
The fourth chart was the simplest. Here, I wanted to test how images would render.
I copied a basic template from Vega-Lite Examples gallery and removed the Y-Axis
Increased X-axis font size
Added tooltip
Pow!
Oh so simple and easy to use!
I cannot wait until it hits AppSource!
Very useful content, do you know if it possible to have the vega-lite title dynamic and linked to the dataset. For example have the KPI text in your KPI cards within the vega-lite title?
If I understand you correctly, I don’t believe it’s possible to have dynamic titles and headers.
ok great thanks, I continue to text using marks as you did in your KPI examples
Hi Kerry,
Your content is amazing, thank you for sharing.
I have been looking everywhere to find a way to lock the axis so that it is always visible when scrolling up/down or to the sides. Do you have any content on this yet?
Thank you