Slicer

A gem to slice your data and present it in such a way so as to be consumed by d3.js, specifically the sunburst visualization (although there's no reason it couldn't be consumed by some other vis).

For a fantastic example of the sunburst vis, please see the coffee flavor wheel Go look at that now and the rest of this README will make a lot more sense.

This gem is in production use on Artful.ly. We'll have a full end-to-end example (including js) soon on Artful.ly open source

Install

gem install slicer

Usage

Slicer needs the following as input:

• A root slice (pass nil and Slicer will create one for you)
• An Array of things on which to operate. These can be whatever your system is interested in: items, tickets, widgets, metrics, whatever.
• An Array of Proc objects to use to act on those things

In return, slicer will give you:

• A Slice object, with children. The root Slice class represents the innermost ring of the vis. Children are the outer rings.

Your Procs

The procs that you pass to slicer should return a Hash, for each element:

• the key is the label of the slice
• the value is the array of things that apply

For example, say you're slicing up purchased_items by payment method. Your proc would look something like

self.payment_method_proc = Proc.new do |items|
  payment_method_map = {}
  items.each do |item|
    item_array = payment_method_map[item.payment_method]
    item_array ||= []
    item_array << item
    payment_method_map[item.payment_method] = item_array
  end
  payment_method_map
end

This proc returns something like

{
  :credit_card  => some_items,
  :cash     => some_other_items
}

And you would pass this proc to Slicer

Slicer.slice(Slice.new("All Sales"), purchased_items, [payment_method_proc])

If you have more procs, pass them in. They'll get sliced in the order you provide.

Slicer.slice(Slice.new("All Sales"), purchased_items, [payment_method_proc, location_proc, big_spender_proc])

TODO

• A more thorough example
• Better coloring

Credits

Big hat tip and thanks to the good people working on D3.js, specifically Mike Bostok. Thanks to Jason Davies for his Zoomable Sunburst example for providing the inspiration for this.