Linear Frequency
MAT 259, 2012
RJ Duran
Introduction
What are the top 10 checked out DVD's of 2011?
The goal of this project was to become familiar with writing an interesting query to determine the top 10 checked out DVD's of 2011. My idea as you can see from the sketches started out as an interactive timeline that allows the user to explore the top items of a specific itemtype over a time period. I ultimately simplified the project to show 10 items for 2011 to practice combining aesthetic elements with the data set.
The goal of this project was to become familiar with writing an interesting query to determine the top 10 checked out DVD's of 2011. My idea as you can see from the sketches started out as an interactive timeline that allows the user to explore the top items of a specific itemtype over a time period. I ultimately simplified the project to show 10 items for 2011 to practice combining aesthetic elements with the data set.
Query
SELECT title, itemtype, count(*) FROM transactions2011 WHERE year(ckoutDateTime) = '2011' and itemtype like '%dvd%' GROUP BY title ORDER BYcount(*) DESC LIMIT 10;
Result and
Analysis
Analysis
Technically the project is pretty straight forward in its design. I am not implementing the mysql query inside the primary application. Instead I ran the query using a separate program (saveQueryAsText.zip) to save the data to a text file for loading into the main program (top10dvds.zip). This speeds up the process and allows for greater experimentation with the data set.
Code
Control
The basic functionality of the application can be seen quickly after launching it. As the user moves the mouse from left to right they are able to rotate the spiral of items to reveal which items are more popular. The black circles represent the volume of checkouts or total checkouts throughout the year.