=== Tool ====== Synopsis ====== Links ====== Aplications ===

>Tool

AREA is a visualization tool that allows friendly-graphical browsing of data and creation of intuitive and attractive representations. AREA creates treemaps visualisations from databases.
AREA gives the possibility to browse AREA representations in its gallery, to create an AREA representation from the available data already inserted and to add new data to be represented using AREA.
Technically, AREA is a cgi-perl script that produces an XHTML and it uses an small AJAX script to get the database queries and XML for store representations. It has been developed in the context of the common memory project. It has been successfully used to represent and visualize the organisations that participated in the consecutive European social forums and the contents of the e-library of the memory project.


>Synopsis

>> Aims and Reasons

Currently, the free software world wide development is growing up seriously. That means that we can start imagining a world were software will be free.
Following this optimistic idea, next step should be about Data, from free software to free data.
The most successful projects of those last years are based on their data (quality and quantity). Examples like wikipedia, flickr or youtube are powerful more because of the data they have than because of the software they use.

To be able to work with amounts of valuable data we need to improve the tools we have to understand it and to use its mining. Area gives you an image of the databases. When you look for data using Area, you can get a view of the whole data that you are looking on for free, in terms of time.

>> Definitions and hypothesis

AREA assumes that there is a multiplicity of points of view and permits to choose one own perspective to approach any given data base. AREA is a treemap multi generator, which means that AREA gives several ways to display loads of data entities.
The idea was to make a web attractive interface in order to configure an Area visualization from a mysql tables. With a browser it is possible to choose the importance of table fields and the style of the Area visualization with the aim to present non hierarchical visualisations. AREA is a non-hierarchical visualization because all the information entities of a representation belongs to a unique visual level with same visual weight. Area gives the possibility to anyone to participate navigating through the data, choosing which data wants to visualise and even introducing new data bases to be visualised.
Area gives you an image of the databases. When you look for data using Area, you can get a view of the whole data that you are looking on for free, in terms of time. Currently, Area must be adapted to each data source.
With AREA it is also possible to correlate two different variables to permit bivariate analysis, as well as univariate one. Next step will be to write a web configurator. People will have the chance to fine tune and define the desired representation easily, using a simple browser. AREA can be a quantum treemap or a non-quantum treemap.

Area is a free tool created using free software. It is available for downloading using Subversion. The visualisation of ESF organisations shows the organisations that have inscribed themselves in the past Social Forums from a database elaborated by Euromovements in the context of the ESF Memory project. It is possible to visualise them by ESF and type of organisation. Each small square represent one of those organisations. Using the input form on the right side it is possible to filter the organizations. Clicking on the illuminated squares it is possible to know more about each organisation participant at any ESF.
The AREA of e-library inhabits the visualisation of the e-library from and for social transformation, elaborated in the context of the common memory project, by shoosing two equal or different parameters to be represented. Each square represents a bibliography reference of the e-library and it is possible to acces to full information about it by clicking on it.

>> Which kind of data can be visualized with AREA?

In principle any kind of data can be represented. The format of the data sould be a Mysql database. It could be:
Data from social movements
Data from university studies
Data from statistics

>> Technical Requirements

The conditions and format to include a database in AREA: 1) Format of the data: Currently, AREA represents Mysql databases
2) AREA represents fields of the database table that have a number DISTINCT values between 2 and 50. We recommended less than 20 values.
DISTINCT is a command used in Mysql databases. An example: supose we have a table with a list of people. If we have a field in a table of a database call gender. We can have 3 options to choose for each entry in the table. That's: female/ male/other
Every entry on the table will have to take one of this values. In this case there are 3 distinct values for the gender field of the table.
This field is representable with AREA. The more representable fields in a table, the more number of AREA representations for this table. If the data has more than one table, we can configure the relations between tables in the data configuration and labels for each field name.
3) Number of entries: currently AREA can represent 10.000 maximum, but this depends on the resources of the computer you are using.

>> How does it works

AREA gives the possibility to browse available AREA representations in its gallery, to create an AREA representation from the available data already inserted and to add new data to be represented using AREA. To browse available AREA visualisations is as easy as choosing a visualisation from the gallery. To create and AREA representation needs to follow the easy AREA instructions after choosing the data and the parameters wished to be visualised. To add new data is possible by downloading AREA or right now by contacting the developer. In the future might be possible to add new data bases directly from a login in AREA.

To be able to represent a new data source using AREA we have to follow next steps:
1.Install AREA in your server following the instructions in Readme.txt file
2.Transform the data you want to represent into a table or more than one table in a mysql database.
3.Configure the datasource using the XML configuration file (see in the souces the file xml/sample.xml)
4.Try the representation with a browser pointing here (where datasrcname is the name you configured in step 3 for your data.)

It is specifically useful to represent data collected from closed social ciencies questionaires or registration forms, but it allows to have an obsevations/description field to complete any information.

For a full description of how it works
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Forum
Contact me

>> How it has been developed

Technically, AREA is a cgi-perl script that produces an XHTML and it uses an small AJAX script to get the database queries and XML for store representations. AREA is made by Jaume Nualart (started february 06') with friendly and nice collaborations from: Nuria Verges, Anna Sala,  Abdul Pallares, Yves Degoyon. And the support and opinions from: Alex Hache, Alejandra Perez. AREA is part of the Memory Project.
Area is available for download using Subversion. Most of the time, you will start using a Subversion repository by doing a checkout of your project. Checking out a repository creates a copy of it on your local machine. This copy contains the HEAD (latest revision) of the Subversion repository that you specify on the command line:
$~: svn checkout svn://r23.cc/area


>Aplications

>> e-library AREA:

The e-library on and for social transformation is an open archive containing articles, bibliographic references and images etc. on fields of action of global movements, such as social forums; democracy; Europe; globalization; common goods; education; precarity; housing; art; ecology; gender; territory and peace, among others. The e-library is open for you to easily publish and spread other materials. e-library area representation is a form of visualisation of the e-library contents. It is possible to correlate different introduced parameters in order to discover a bit more about the e-library bibliography and the relations of its contents. The parameters to be visualised are the type of author, author's gender, publication year, language, license, publication type and reported by. Furthermore it is possible to visualise any other information of the e-library about the selected bibliography by just clicking on it.
Inside the Document Memory Project I am presenting a demo about.From a database with a list of 5473 organizations that were related to any of the four European Social Forums an AREA representation has been completed as a first demo of the AREA possibilities for the ESF memory project. This data is not complete, but can be enough to show how easy can be a research and how intuitive is the representation using colors and areas and shows how to browse an important among of information in an easy non-hierarchical intuitive way.

ESF organisations AREA:
Inside the Document Memory Project I am presenting a demo about.From a database with a list of 5473 organizations that were related to any of the four European Social Forums an AREA representation has been completed as a first demo of the AREA possibilities for the ESF memory project. This data is not complete, but can be enough to show how easy can be a research and how intuitive is the representation using colors and areas and shows how to browse an important among of information in an easy non-hierarchical intuitive way. Diferent parameters can be visualised such as:
- by ESF( Florence, Paris, London or Athens);
- by date: Upper left corner to down right corner data ordered. The data meants when the organization was entered to the database.
- by nature: NGO, Network, Affinity group, etc...
- by tag: at this moment we recommened search for one word.

Femicides AREA:

Feminicides visualisations show the violence against women with death result from 2000 to 2006 in Spanish State in an easy, understandable and restless way.
Area visualisations permit to visualise data under a great variety of parameters combinations, in an univariate and bivariate form, that give several pictograms. Moreover those pictograms can be visualised in a quantum or non quantum way.
Data can be visualised depending on the following parameters: year of death, month of death, victim place of residence (CCAA), victim age group, agressor kinship to the victim and arm used to kill.
Data is represented in absolut terms. We recomend to relativize it by consulting the total populatin number for each CCAA.
Once visualised the pictograms it is possible to extend the information of any case by clicking on each square and visualising each case description at the screen. In the future there will be other AREA representations provided from donestech project, on womyn and technologies


>Links:

>> Quantum treemap or a non-quantum treemap

For further information, you can take a look at the article from Insitute for Advanced Computer Studies from the University of Maryland And also: Treemaps for space-constrained visualization of hierarchies, by Ben Shneiderman

>> Nonhierarchical representations

You can read "la realitat no és un llistat"

>> About treemaps

>> Subversion
Everything about how to use subversion here

>> e-library from and for social transformation