Spider Chart Mod for Spotfire®

The spider chart mod visualizes multivariate data in the form of a two-dimensional chart with an arbitrary number of quantitative variables represented on axes starting from the same point. It is useful to compare multiple categories or groups of values over common variables in a single diagram to reveal distinct correlations, trade-offs, and a multitude of other comparative measures.

Spider charts (also called radar charts, web charts, start chart, star plot, cobweb charts) have many use cases in different sectors like marketing, analysis, sales, research, education, and more.

Data Requirements

Every mod handles missing, corrupted and/or inconsistent data in different ways. It is advised to always review how the data is visualized.

To make the spider chart mod work properly, the underlying data must be formatted in a certain way. A data table with at least four columns is required. One column should contain groups or categories, for example, names of people or objects. Others columns should contain the contribution for each point, one column per series to be plotted.

Setting Up the Mod

In this example dataset, we have five columns: Fiscal Year, Quarter 1, Quarter 2, Quarter 3 and Quarter 4

In the spider chart configuration in Spotfire, we would specify the 'FY' column from the data table above as our X-axis and each other column as Y-axis. Then we configure Color-by to (Column Names).

Configuring the Mod

Once the spider chart is configured and has data provided, you can alter the rendering of the visualization live. Click on a X-axis label to access the settings.

Curve type

• Rounded: Connect data points by smooth curves.
• Linear: Connect data points by straight line segments.

Rotate X-axis labels

Rotate X-axis labels to follow the direction of the axis line.

Normalize Y-axis values

Prevent extreme values to distort/crowd the other values.

Color fill

Add background coloring for each category with transparency so that all categories can be seen.

Using the Mod

The spider chart mod supports marking data and filtering data. Clicking on a marker will mark it. Clicking on a line will mark it. Clicking in an empty space will clear the marking.

In a terminal window:

• npm install
• npm start

In a new terminal window:

• npm run server

• Spotfire Community Exchange: A safe and trusted place to discover ready-to-use Mods
• Developer Documentation: Introduction and tutorials for Mods developers
• Mods code examples on GitHub: A public repository for example projects