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Amit Kumar Mondal

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Spider Charts using SWT

Overview

Overview

In today’s world, we have several tools to visualize data in different forms of Charts but if you want to visualize multivariate data in the form of a two-dimensional chart, then we can make use of Spider Charts.

While working on a RCP Application, I stumbled upon a requirement of visualizing multivariate data using Spider Charts. I always abide by the rule to use open source libraries whenever needed.

Eclipse BIRT

Eclipse BIRT is a famous open-source framework to generate data visualizations and reports. Amongst its several functionalities, it provides the opportunity to generate Spider Charts.

So, to generate only Spider Charts, do we have to use the complete framework? Seriously! Are you kidding?

Unfortunately I haven’t found any solution yet that is only targeted to generate Spider Charts using SWT.

Spider Chart SWT

To overcome the difficulties in generating Spider Charts, I have started off with a basic library that would only generate Spider Charts.

In addition to it, I have incorporated Java 8’s Fluent API to use the library in more efficient way.

Sample Usage

@SpiderChartPlot(name = "iPhone 6", areaColor = DARKORCHID)
public final class IPhone {

	@DataPoints
	public double[] dataPoints() {
		final double[] data = { 4, 3.5, 4, 4.6, 5 };
		return data;
	}

}
@SpiderChartPlot(name = "Nexus 6", areaColor = OLIVE)
public final class Nexus {

	@DataPoints
	public double[] dataPoints() {
		final double[] data = { 4, 3, 3, 4.1, 3 };
		return data;
	}

}
// Create the objects of the annotated classes
final Supplier<Object> iPhoneData = IPhone::new;
final Supplier<Object> nexusData = Nexus::new;

final SpiderChartViewer viewer = SpiderChartBuilder.config(shell, settings -> {
    // Add title and legends to the Spider Chart
    settings.title(title -> title.text = "Smartphone Comparison Scale").legend(legend -> {
        legend.addItem(iPhoneData);
        legend.addItem(nexusData);
    }).plotter(plotter -> {
        // Add the Axes (name, maximum scale, minimum scale)
        final AxesConfigurer configuration = new AxesConfigurer.Builder().addAxis("Battery", 5, 0)
                .addAxis("Camera", 5, 0).addAxis("Display", 5, 0).addAxis("Memory", 5, 0).addAxis("Brand", 5, 0).build();
        plotter.use(configuration);
    });
}).viewer(chart -> {
    // Add the different data objects
    chart.data(firstData -> firstData.inject(iPhoneData)).data(secondData -> secondData.inject(nexusData));
});

Sample Output

Github Repo

Spider Chart SWT

N.B: Pull Requests are encouraged. :)