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This Mod for Spotfire® can be used to show how 2-4 measures changes over time. This method of visualizing changes over time was popularized by Hans Rosling in a famous TED talk from 2006 where he used it to show changes in global health and economics. Here's what that dataset looks like in Spotfire using the animated bubble chart mod.

Clicking on the play button in the lower left hand corner below the visualization will show how Life Expectancy and Income per capita in different countries have changed over time.

Installation

Opening the visualization in Spotfire® Analyst

1. From this repository Releases section, locate and download the .mod file.
2. Drag the .mod file into an analysis in Spotfire® Analyst.

For information on how to use and share visualizations mods, read the Spotfire® documentation.

Running the project in Spotfire®

1. From this repository Releases section, locate and download the source code.
2. Build the project in your preferred code editor. Microsoft Visual Studio Code is highly recommended.
3. Open an analysis in Spotfire® and select Tools > Development > Create visualization mod from the menubar to connect to the project.

For information on how to get started with visualization mod development, read the Spotfire® documentation.

Data Requirement

Every mod handles missing, corrupted and/or inconsistent data in different ways. It is advised to always review how the data is visualized.

The animated bubble chart can be used to visualize and animate any multi-variate dataset that contains snapshots of values taken at different timepoints. In order to make it work properly a data table with at least four columns is required:

• One column should identify the bubbles, for example, names of countries, people or objects.
• One column shoud contain a time point, for example years, or weeks.
• Two columns should contain measures for the country, person or object taken at different times.

Setup

Let's say we have a grocery sales dataset that contains data about prices, costs and sales volume for different items:

Type	Item	Year	Price	Cost	Sales
Fruit	Apple	2000	5	3	10
Fruit	Apple	2001	6	12	8
Fruit	Apple	2002	7	13	9
Fruit	Apple	2003	10	5	11
Fruit	Banana	2000	7	1	16
Fruit	Banana	2001	9	5	20
Fruit	Banana	2002	10	8	25
Fruit	Banana	2003	11	9	10
Fruit	Pear	2000	4	1	8
Fruit	Pear	2001	5	5	5
Fruit	Pear	2002	3	8	15
Fruit	Pear	2003	2	20	25
Veg.	Cucumber	2000	1	4	10
Veg.	Cucumber	2001	9	2	8
Veg.	Cucumber	2002	10	13	9
Veg.	Cucumber	2003	5	5	11
Veg.	Squash	2000	3	8	16
Veg.	Squash	2001	2	2	20
Veg.	Squash	2002	3	2	25
Veg.	Squash	2003	10	8	10

A basic animated bubble chart can be configured to show how prices and costs for different items have varied over time by creating an animated bubble chart with the following settings:

• Y = Avg(Price)
• X = Avg(Cost)
• Animate By = Year
• Marker By = Item

Optionally you could also use color and size to show additional dimensions. E.g:

• Color By = Type
• Size By = Sales

Usage

Scrubbing

Click anywhere in the animation slider to skip to a particular time point. Drag the handle to manually move back and forth in time.

Animation speed

Click the speedometer to the right of the animation slider change the speed of the animation.

Marking

Clicking on a bubble will mark it in all timepoints. This makes it easy to follow one or more bubbles throughout the animation. Clicking in the empty space in between bubbles will clear the marking. You can mark several bubbles by Ctrl-clicking on them. Clicking and dragging allow you to select multiple bubbles. You can select all bubbles within a range of values by dragging along the y- or x-axis.

Labels

By default marked bubbles will be labeled. You can turn this behavior on or off by right-clicking in the y-axis area and checking or unchecking show labels for marked rows.

Log scales

Natural dataset often contains a lot of small values and a few larger values. If this is the case with data that you want to animate you may end up with a visualization that shows a lot of overlapping bubbles in the lower left hand corner of the visualization. One way to handle that is to use a log-scale on the x- or y-axis. You can turn on and off log-scales by right clicking in the x- or y-axis area and checking or unchecking the log-scale checkbox.