[CSCI 3665] Interactive Data Visualization

Instructor: Clare Bates Congdon


Measuring the Relative Importance of Different Agricultural Inputs to Global and Regional Crop Yield Growth since 1975

Name: Son D. Ngo, James Boyle and Do Yeun Kim
Date: November, 23rd 2016
Assignment: FP12 - Project Goals (Revised)

Project Portfolio

  1. Interactive Visualization Goals

    In order to best accomodate the collaborator's goals, along with our intention of creating a comprehensive and interactive visualization, we aim to create the following:

    • An interactive time-lapsed scatterplot, which will show how temperature and precipitation can affect crop yield over time.
    • An interactive geomap of the world , which will show country by country crop yield over time.
    • An interactive line graph, which will show aggregate trends in crop types over time. (If time permits)

    In order to read about how each of these visualization will be implemented, please go to this link. As of right now, these goals are quite ambitious. With consultation from Clare, we will adjust our goal to suit our capabilities and time availability appropriately.

  2. Accomplishments

    Unlike the initial brainstorming, we decided to put the line graph aside in terms of priority, and decided to change the question to answer with the choropleth map. We first gathered the data of interest (provided by Erik Nelson, our collaborator) and supplementary data - that is, the UNFAO country code data and geomap data for choropleth map - for refinement. Once we had the data and refined them to facilitate processing of the data for visualization, we created the rough draft of the scatter plot and the choropleth map, both of which lack interactivity as of the moment.

    We have divided the work evenly. For more details, the contribution distribution can be accessed here.

  3. Goals

    The following goals are not definitive, but more of a general implementation path that we would like to follow, with some flexibility. We understand that there is a possibility of procrastination and unwanted over-commitments. Therefore, we did our best to take into consideration all those situations, and have come up with the following plan:

    1. Week 14: Nov 29 - Dec 1

      • November 29
        • Implement animation for the scatter plot, add buttons that can control the animation (play, pause, reset, speed up, speed down, rewind - if time permits).
        • Add legend to the choropleth map and make sure that the colors adjust when the slider's value changes.
        • Keep country's name in their original form (flex goal).

      • December 1
        • Filter out the top 20 countries that contributed the most to global agricultural output, based on 2002 data.
        • Add hovering effects and tooltips (when zommed in) for choropleth map.
        • Create radio buttons for choropleth map to switch between crop yield units.
        • Experiment with changing the country's border's color and see if it's possible.
        • Use his formula to preprocess the data, and potentially construct a simple version of the line graph (flex goal).

    2. Week 15: Dec 5 - Dec 7

      • December 6
        • Add tooltip that display a country's details when user hovers over a dot.
        • Add a radio button to allow user to switch between crop yield units (million kcals/ha or tons/ha) for the choropleth map.
        • Create a bug-free version with two visualizations.
        • Start working on presentation.
        • Create radio buttons for line graphs to switch between global, temperate or tropical (flex goal).

      • December 8
        • Complete potential overflow from previous weeks.
        • Fix bugs, clean and comment code.
        • Finish final project report.
        • Finish line graph and integrate it into the working version with 2 visualizations (flex goal).

    3. Remaining Week: Dec 12 - Dec 19

      • December 14
        • Fix bugs, clean and comment code.
        • Complete potential overflow from previous weeks.
        • Implement interactivty and tooltips for line graph (flex goal).

      • December 19
        • Fix bugs, clean and comment code.
        • Finish integrating line graph (flex goal).
        • SUBMIT!


References
  1. Nelson, Erik and Bates Congdon, Clare, "Measuring the Relative Importance of DIfferent Agricultural Inputs to Global and Regional Crop Yield Growth Since 1975" (2016). Economics Department Working Paper Series. Paper 12.
    http://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/econpapers/12

External Links
To Son's homepage
To James' homepage
To Do's homepage