What you will learn in this workshop:
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Learn how to find, extract, and import data.
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Use THREE.js and other tools to visualize this data.
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git clone https://github.com/mflux/eyeodatavis.git eyeodatavis or download https://github.com/mflux/eyeodatavis/archive/master.zip then extract files to your desktop.
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Run a webserver MAC USERS: Open up a terminal (command+space and type terminal and hit enter) Navigate to the cloned (or unzipped) directory Run a SimpleHTTP server (python -m SimpleHTTPServer) PC USERS: Mongoose Cygwin Dropbox
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Open up a webrowser and navigate to localhost:8000 or whatever port your web host software is using.
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Open up a text editor and source code (start with visualization.js)
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Start hacking!
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You barely know javascript, all of this 3D graphics stuff is overwhelming to you and what the heck is a CSV? Well you're in luck, follow along the workshop demos.
You can dance your way around code, but perhaps have never touched THREE.js. You've made some visualizations, maybe even got a few D3 karate belts at home. I challenge you to find new data, preferably part of Minneapolis County level data, and make this existing visualization do new and exciting things.
You are a javascript ninja and three.js is child's play. Alright let's rock. Find another SVG map, get it rendering as 3D meshes. Find another data-set, and see if you can inject this data within the framework. And maybe at the end you're going to make everything dance to music.
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THREE.js, a webgl/canvas rendering engine (Reference: http://threejs.org/docs/ )
dat.gui, a quick and easy way to create sliders and dropdown menus (Reference: http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/examples/gui/#1--Basic-Usage )
two.js, a 2d animation library, used here for reading SVG data (Reference: http://jonobr1.github.io/two.js/#documentation)
JQuery, for wrangling html and DOM cross compatibility (Reference: http://oscarotero.com/jquery/ )
Underscore.js, a swiss-army-knife for Javascript (Reference: http://underscorejs.org/ )
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Look for any parsable .csv or .json files that interest you. The below are data sets for Minnesota, but feel free to find data on other states or countries!
http://capitolcode.mn.gov/data/
http://www.demography.state.mn.us/resource.html?Id=18667
http://www.census.gov/econ/cbp/download/
https://www.census.gov/popest/data/datasets.html
http://www.state.mn.us/opendata/data.html
http://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/CTU/
http://www.demography.state.mn.us/projections2015-2045.htm
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EMAIL: flux.blackcat@gmail.com TWITTER: @mflux WEB: ghost-hack.com