The Grammar of Graphics

by Leland Wilkinson

This book was written for statisticians, computer scientists, geographers, research and applied scientists, and others interested in visualizing data. It presents a unique foundation for producing almost every quantitative graphic found in scientific journals, newspapers, statistical packages, and data visualization systems. This foundation was designed for a distributed computing environment (Internet, Intranet, client-server), with special attention given to conserving computer code and system resources. While the tangible result of this work is a Java production graphics library (GPL) developed in collaboration with Dan Rope and Dan Carr, this book focuses on the deep structures involved in producing quantitative graphics from data. What are the rules that underly the production of pie charts, bar charts, scatterplots, function plots, maps, mosaics, radar charts? These rules are abstracted from the work of Bertin, Cleveland, Kosslyn, MacEachren, Pinker, Tufte, Tukey, Tobler, and other theorists of quantitative graphics. Those less interested in the theoretical and mathematical foundations can still get a sense of the richness and structure of the system by examining the numerous and often unique color graphics it can produce. Leland Wilkinson is Senior VP, SYSTAT Products at SPSS Inc. and Adjunct Professor of Statistics at Northwestern University. He wrote the SYSTAT statistical package and founded SYSTAT Inc. in 1984. Wilkinson joined SPSS in a 1994 acquisition and now works on research and development of graphical applications for data mining and statistics. He is a Fellow of the ASA and an Associate Editor of The American Statistician. In addition to journal articles and the original SYSTAT computer program and manuals, Wilkinson is the author (with Grant Blank and Chris Gruber) of Desktop Data Analysis with SYSTAT.

Genres: Computer Science, Design, Nonfiction, Mathematics, Computers, Technical, Science

408 pages, Hardcover

First published August 19, 1999

Reviews

[Andrew]

Didn't finish but I would like to come back to this at some point. There is an awful lot going on in this book, and it's funny too.

[Ji]

Re-reading this book again. Realized that the taxonomy of graphics is indeed a big topic. Given that lots, if not most, of impacts a data scientist can deliver lies in the data charts, I find it extremely challenging and refreshing to gain insights of visualization from a book as classic as this one. I'll revisit it soon, and often.

[Chu Pi]

A very good read!
The ideas are clear (though sometimes a bit wordy for "the details") and sound.
Most impressed is how passionate Leland Wilkinson is toward this subject can be felt in his writing.
Love it!

[Cop Deb]

I'm sure that it is a great book, but I couldn't follow the novelty or take valuable information. I'm certain that it is because I'm not the public that this book is aiming for.

For that reason, I cannot give a perfect or horrible rating.

[S]

Notes to self: @ BRCC ebooks collection

Object Oriented Design
Features both Mathematical and Psychological considerations

[Brian]

Mentioned in metagraph talk at Scipy 2011