highcharts

At the end of this blog, you would be able to setup interactive charts using HighCharts and D3.js. As the charts/data-visualisation models will form the backbone of the upcoming SUSI.AI Analytics dashboard, as well as the data representational model for various useful data. For the purpose of integration with the SUSI Skills CMS project, we will be using the react-highcharts and react-tagcloud library.

There are various kinds of charts and plots that HighCharts offers. They are –

• Line charts
• Area charts
• Column and Bar Charts
• Pie Charts
• Scatter and Bubble Charts
• Combinations
• Dynamic Charts
• Gauges
• Heat and Tree maps
• 3D charts

Check out this link for the full list.

We would be aiming to build up the above charts for analysis of Term Frequency Trends and Trending Clouds.

For the Term Frequency Trends, we will need to setup a Basic Line Graph and for the later,  we need a World Cloud.

Setting up a Basic Line Graph

The aim is to setup a basic line graph and to accomplish that we use a react library called react-highcharts, which makes our work very easier.

Firstly, we create an object config that contains the labels and the required data, with the key values as mentioned in the API reference. The object looks like this –

const config = {
  xAxis: {
    categories: ['01/13', '01/14', '01/15', '01/16', '01/17', '01/18', '01/19', '01/20']
  },
  series: [{
    data: [750, 745, 756, 740, 760, 752, 765]
  }]
};

Secondly, we create a React Component and pass the config object as a property to the ReactHighcharts component.

Finally, we render the component in a div of the index.html file, and the following output is achieved.

The code for the component that renders the Chart is as follows:

import React from 'react';
import ReactHighcharts from 'react-highcharts';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';

const config = {
  xAxis: {
    categories: ['01/13', '01/14', '01/15', '01/16', '01/17', '01/18', '01/19', '01/20']
  },
  series: [{
    data: [750, 745, 756, 740, 760, 752, 765]
  }]
};

ReactDOM.render(<ReactHighcharts  config={config} />, document.getElementById('app'));

Setting up a WordCloud

Here, we wish to setup a WordCloud that would show the different words that got searched or the top trending words. We would be using the react-tagcloud library for this.

Firstly, we create an object data that contains the text along with the count/frequency of search. The object looks like this –

const data = [
  { value: "JavaScript", count: 38 },
  { value: "React", count: 30 },
  { value: "Nodejs", count: 28 },
  { value: "Express.js", count: 25 },
  { value: "HTML5", count: 33 },
  { value: "MongoDB", count: 18 },
  { value: "CSS3", count: 20 }
];

Secondly, we create a React Component and pass the data object as a property to the TagCloud component.

Finally, we render the component in a div of the index.html file, and the following output is achieved.

The code for the component that renders the Chart is as follows:

import React from 'react';
import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { TagCloud } from "react-tagcloud";
 
const data = [
  { value: "JavaScript", count: 38 },
  { value: "React", count: 30 },
  { value: "Nodejs", count: 28 },
  { value: "Express.js", count: 25 },
  { value: "HTML5", count: 33 },
  { value: "MongoDB", count: 18 },
  { value: "CSS3", count: 20 }
];
 
const SimpleCloud = () => (
  <TagCloud 
       minSize={12}
       maxSize={35}
       tags={data}
       onClick={tag => alert(`'${tag.value}' was selected!`)} />
);

ReactDOM.render(<SimpleCloud />, document.getElementById('app'));

These were some examples of setting up some of the data-visualization models, that would form the basic building block of the SUSI Analytics project. I hope this blogs would be a good starting point for those wanting to start with setting up charts, graphs, etc.

Resources

• API Documentation of HighCharts –
  • https://www.highcharts.com/
• API Documentation of D3.js –
  • https://d3js.org/
• API Documentation of react-tagcloud –
  • https://github.com/madox2/react-tagcloud
• API Documentation of react-highcharts–
  • https://github.com/kirjs/react-highcharts