The aim of this assignment is to create a data visualisation from a dataset that we source ourselves. We are to use Processing, a language built off the Java language that is used for electronic art and visual design.
Data visualisation tells a story using some feature of a dataset. This helps to put the data into context, allowing a person to easily understand the meaning of the data. It is a landscape that you can explore, an 'Information Map' that helps to guide you through the information. Data is used to create new insight and new ideas, it helps us to solve information problems. A data visualisation helps a person to look beyond the data and numbers.
My plan for this assignment is to use a dataset consisting of National Vehicle Registrations between 2002 and September 2015. This dataset has been created using the data available on The Society of the Irish Motor Industry website: http://www.simi.ie/Statistics/National+Vehicle+Statistics.html
I am going to use this dataset to show the effect of the recession on the Irish Motor Industry with regards to domestic car sales. I aim to show the car marques that were worst affected by the recession, and the ones that seem to have grown as a result of the recession. This will also show the general buying habits of the Irish public during the last years of the Celtic Tiger Era, and will show how these habits changed as a result of the recession.
This solution makes use of bar charts, trend lines and slopegraphs to convey the dataset that I have chosen to analyse. I have used simple statistics such as averages and total values to create these graphs.
Switching between the graphs is done by using a ControlP5 controller, which has radio buttons relating to choose which graph to show.
There is also a dropdown menu for choosing which marque's data to show which the trend line is being shown
Each graph and axis is created as an object, and can be rendered by calling a method to draw the graph needed. This allows multiple graphs to be stored and then displayed using loops.
Each marque is given its own respective colour when a MarqueData object is constructed, which allows for consistency of colours between each respective graph.