Minimal Statistics for Visualizing Large-Scale Data in R

• Activity Number: 354
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 3, 2010 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Computing
• Author(s): Xiang Wu* and Heike Hofmann+
• Companies: Iowa State University and Iowa State University
• Keywords: Graphic interface ; Data visualization ; Large-scale database

Abstract

With size of data increasing rapidly, it becomes more important to be able to access data not located in main memory. Based on the R packages RMySQL and ggplot, we present a tool for preparing and rendering information from a database that allows visualization of large quantities of data with minimal loss of information. Given basic information about the database, this interface will connect to the database, pre-process the data, retrieve the data automatically and finally allow the user to render a graphic at an appropriate resolution. Usually the size of the data in a database is huge, so data reduction is inevitable. Combining the powerful data processing capabilities of database management system and the flexible graphic renderings of R, this interface provides a handy approach to visualize large-scale database.