Generating customized data bound visualizations

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9384181-B2
Application number	US-97256210-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 20, 2010
Priority date	Dec 20, 2010
Publication date	Jul 5, 2016
Grant date	Jul 5, 2016

Abstract

Descried herein are various technologies to visualizing data in a spreadsheet application. Customized visualizations are generated by binding a user-defined equation with a parameter of a primitive visual shape that has been selected by the user to visualized a dataset. The user-defined equation takes as input a value of data in a cell of the spreadsheet application, and the primitive visual shape is displayed to the user as a function of the output of the user-defined equation.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
in a computer-implemented spreadsheet application, receiving a dataset, the dataset comprises a plurality of data points;
receiving a selection of a primitive visual shape, an instance of the primitive visual shape is to visually represent a data point in the dataset, the primitive visual shape has a parameter that at least partially defines appearance of the primitive visual shape;
responsive to receiving the selection, binding a user-defined equation to the parameter of the primitive visual shape, such that outputs of the user-defined equation define how the parameter of the primitive visual shape is to appear when respective instances of the primitive visual shape visually represent data points in the data set;
executing the user-defined equation using a second data point in the dataset as input to the user-defined equation, such that a value is computed based upon the second data point;
assigning the value to the parameter of the instance of the primitive visual shape that is to visually represent the data point; and
displaying the instance of the primitive visual shape on a display of a computing device in the spreadsheet application, the instance of the primitive visual shape displayed to represent the data point and to visually indicate that the parameter has the value.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
prior to receiving the selection of the primitive visual shape, receiving a selection of a visualization type, the visualization type is a graph or chart; and
receiving the selection of the primitive visual shape based upon the selection of the visualization type.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
subsequent to receiving the selection of the primitive visual shape, receiving a selection of a visualization type, wherein the visualization type is a graph or chart, wherein displaying the instance of the primitive visual shape comprises displaying the instance of the primitive visual shape in the visualization type.

4. The method of claim 1 , the parameter is size, color, or position of the primitive visual shape.

5. The method of claim 1 , the primitive visual shape is one of a circle, a square, a diamond, a rectangle, an octagon, a pentagon, a hexagon, a trapezoid, a parallelogram, an oval, a triangle, a rhombus, an ellipse, a crescent, a heart, a star, a curve, or a line.

6. The method of claim 1 , the user-defined equation is a conditional equation, and the value assigned to the parameter is computed based upon whether a condition in the conditional equation is satisfied.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
storing the binding of the user-defined equation to the parameter of the primitive visual shape as a template, the template when stored is accessible for subsequent uses of the spreadsheet application.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
saving the binding of the equation to the parameter of the primitive visual shape as a template;
receiving a request to access the template in the spreadsheet application;
receiving at least one other data point that resides in a second data set in the spreadsheet application;
executing the user-defined equation using the at least one other data point at input to the user-defined equation, such that a second value is computed based upon the at least one other data point;
assigning the second value to the parameter of a second instance of the primitive visual shape; and
utilizing the template to display the second instance of the primitive visual shape to indicate that the second instance of the primitive visual shape has been assigned the second value.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the spreadsheet application is executing on a server computing device and is accessible by way of a network connection.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving an indication that the primitive visual shape is to represent multiple data points in the data set; and
causing a plurality of instances of the primitive visual shape to be displayed in the graphical user interface, the plurality of instances respectively representative of the multiple data points, wherein each of the instances of the primitive visual shape is assigned a respective value for the parameter based upon the user-defined equation bound to the parameter, and wherein two instances of the primitive visual shape appear differently based upon respective outputs of the user-defined equation.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising causing the binding of the user-defined equation to the parameter of the primitive visual shape to be provided to an online marketplace as a purchasable template, wherein the template is purchasable by way of the online marketplace.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the user-defined equation is expressed in a format that is consistent with a format utilized to define values for data points in cells presented in a graphical user interface of the spreadsheet application.

13. A system comprising:
a processor; and
memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform acts:
receiving a plurality of indications with respect to a spreadsheet application, the spreadsheet application has a spreadsheet loaded therein that is displayed on a display, the spreadsheet comprises:
a first data point; and
a second data point, the plurality of indications comprising:
a first indication that a parameter of a primitive visual shape is to be bound to a user-generated equation, wherein when the parameter of the primitive visual shape is bound to the user-generated equation, outputs of the user-generated equation define how the parameter of the primitive visual shape is to appear when instances of the primitive visual shape are displayed to visually represent data points in the spreadsheet; and
a second indication that the second data point is to be provided as an input value to the user-generated equation, an output value of the user-generated equation that is based upon the input value is assigned to the parameter of an instance of the primitive visual shape that is to represent the first data point; and

displaying a visualization on the display based upon the first indication and the second indication, the visualization comprises the instance of the primitive visual shape, the instance of the primitive visual shape represents the first data point in the visualization, the instance of the primitive visual shape displayed in the visualization to indicate that the output value has been assigned to the parameter of the instance of the primitive visual shape.

14. The system of claim 13 , the acts further comprising generating a binding between the user-generated equation and the parameter of the primitive visual shape responsive to receiving the first indication.

15. The system of claim 14 , the acts further comprising saving the binding as a visualization template responsive to receiving an indication to save the binding.

16. The system of claim 13 comprised by a server that is accessible to a client computing device that comprises the display by way of a network connection.

17. The system of claim 13 , the parameter is one of size, color, or position of the primitive visual shape.

18. The system of claim 13 , the user-generated equation is a conditional equation, and the parameter of the instance of the primitive visual shape is assigned the output value as a function of whether a condition of the conditional equation is satisfied.

19. A computer-readable

Assignees

• Fisher Danyel
• Drucker Steven Mark
• Fernandez Roland
• Bapat Vikram
• Silverstein Robert Scott
• Chen Xiaoji
• Tsao Anson An-Chun
• Kozlowski Oscar Pawel
• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Fisher Danyel
• Drucker Steven Mark
• Fernandez Roland
• Bapat Vikram
• Silverstein Robert Scott
• Chen Xiaoji
• Tsao Anson An-Chun
• Kozlowski Oscar Pawel

Classifications

• G06T11/26

  Drawing of charts or graphs · CPC title

• G06F40/18 Primary

  of spreadsheets (form-filling G06F40/174) · CPC title

• G06F40/103

  Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents (automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191) · CPC title

• G06F17/246 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06T11/206

  Physics · mapped topic