Friday, September 10, 2010

Viewing Large Data Sets with Google Maps

Google Labs - Public Data Explorer
The Public Data Explorer in Google Labs makes large datasets easy to explore, visualize and communicate. The examples provided by Google provide animated Google Maps time-lines that let you explore different datasets geographically and chronologically.

All the examples essentially use the same maps and charts based time-line template to visualise different datasets. Here are just three of the example provided by Google.


Unemployment in the US

This Google Maps time-line lets you view unemployment rates in the US from Jan 1990 up until the present day.

If you press play on the time-line beneath the map you can view an animation of unemployment data over time directly on the map. You can select to compare different states by checking them in the map sidebar.

As well as the map view you can also view animated views of the data in a bar chart, a line graph and in a bubble graph.


GDP & Personal Income

This Google Map allows you to view GDP and Personal Income of U.S. states since 1969. As you can see, from the example embedded above, you can embed any of the visualisations in your own websites or blogs.

World Development Indicators
This Google Map lets you animate a time-line of a number of global data sets. You can use the 'color' and 'size' drop down boxes to switch to different datasets.

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