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https://github.com/tracyhenry/kyrix

Interactive details-on-demand data visualizations at scale
https://github.com/tracyhenry/kyrix

d3js dataviz declarative-language interactive-visualizations postgresql spatial-index visualization-grammar visualization-tools

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Interactive details-on-demand data visualizations at scale

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README 

        
 Kyrix - democratizing details-on-demand data visualizations 





version

build

codestyle

license

contribution

gitter






  




Kyrix facilitates the creation of data visualizations with details-on-demand interactions (e.g. pan and zoom, see the demo gallery[1](#f1) above). In visualizations of such, the underlying dataset is often large. To deal with large data, Kyrix is focused on optimizing two goals: 1) usable declarative API library for visualization developers and 2) 500ms response time to user interactions, which is required to enable interactive browsing. 



   1.  _This gallery GIF is itself a Kyrix application._ 



## Installation instructions for the impatient



1. Install [Docker](https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/) and [Docker Compose](https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/) (must be `v1.17.0` or later). For Mac users, installing [Docker Desktop](https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/install/) will install Docker Compose automatically. Ubuntu 18.04 users can also simply install with `sudo apt update; sudo apt install -y docker.io docker-compose;`.

2. Run `sudo ./run-kyrix.sh --nba --build` in the root directory. You might need to make `run-kyrix.sh` executable, i.e. `sudo chmod +x run-kyrix.sh`.  

3. Wait a couple minutes, then point your browser at `:8000` - remember that if you are using a cloud instance you may (probably) need to open your cloud provider's firewall for this port. If that sounds scary, you can create an SSH tunnel from your PC (e.g. Mac) using `ssh -N  -L 8000::8000` to forward your laptop's port 8000 to the server via [SSH tunneling](https://www.tecmint.com/create-ssh-tunneling-port-forwarding-in-linux/). 



note that you'll need to wait for a message saying `Backend server started...` like this:

```

Serving /project

New project definition coming...

There is diff that requires recomputing indexes. Shutting down server and recomputing...

Precomputing...

Done precomputing!

Completed recomputing indexes. Server restarting...

Backend server started...

*** done! Kyrix ready at: http://:8000/

```



Getting started by reading a [**tutorial**](https://github.com/tracyhenry/Kyrix/wiki/Tutorial), and [**more documentations**](https://github.com/tracyhenry/Kyrix/wiki).



## Setup-free big data visualizations

Kyrix is fully dockerized, with a live PostgreSQL database running right after docker startup. Front-end vis libraries often assume data fits in browser memory, and thus scale to only small data. By working with a containerized database, Kyrix scales to much larger data while being free of the hassle of installing and maintaining databases. 



Docker works by creating fully isolated virtual machines ("containers") on your computer, making it much

easier to achieve correct installations every time ([learn more](https://opensource.com/resources/what-docker)). See [docker config details](https://github.com/tracyhenry/Kyrix/wiki/Docker-Config-Details). 



## Declarative authoring

Kyrix offers two declarative grammars for authoring complex details-on-demand visualizations. [Low-level Kyrix grammar](https://github.com/tracyhenry/Kyrix/wiki/API-Reference) is verbose but expressive. [Kyrix-S grammar](https://github.com/tracyhenry/Kyrix/wiki/Kyrix%E2%80%90S-API-Reference) is a high-level and concise grammar designed for zoomable scatterplot visualizations. For example, Kyrix-S turns

```javascript

{

    data: {  

        db: "nba",  

        query: “SELECT * FROM games"  

    },  

    layout: {  

        x: {  

            field: "home_score",  

            extent: [69, 149]  

        },  

        y: {  

            field: "away_score",  

            extent: [69, 148]  

        },  

        z: {  

            field: "agg_rank",  

            order: "asc"  

        }  

    },  

    marks: {  

        cluster: {  

            mode: "circle"

        },  

        hover: {  

            rankList: {  

                mode: "tabular",  

                fields: ["home_team", "away_team", "home_score", "away_score"],  

                topk: 3  

            },  

            boundary: "convexhull"  

         }  

    },  

    config: {  

        axis: true  

    }  

};

```

into












## Embedding into your favourite web app

Kyrix offers [APIs](https://github.com/tracyhenry/Kyrix/wiki/Web-Embedding) to integrate a kyrix application into a web application. There's no limit on what you can imagine: complex coordinated views, programmatic pan/zoom control, cross filtering...  



## Telling us about your Kyrix app

We'd like to learn more about your application requirements to make Kyrix better. If you have built a Kyrix app, send us a screenshot on [Gitter](https://gitter.im/kyrix-mit/kyrix)!



## Contributing to Kyrix

We welcome contributions! Please [let us know](https://gitter.im/kyrix-mit/kyrix) about your change beforehand if it is big. Also, see [contributing guidelines](https://github.com/tracyhenry/Kyrix/wiki/How-to-Contribute). 



Kyrix is maintained by a group of researchers at [MIT's data system group](http://dsg.csail.mit.edu/). The system is not possible without the contribution from these wonderful developers:



  

    
Wenbo Tao


    
Adam Sah


    
Xinli Hou


    
Xiaoyu Liu


    
Yedi Wang


    
Peter Griggs


  

  

        
Maxime Schoemans


    
Erica Zhou


    
Abhishek Bassan


    
Scarlett Zhang


    
Amy Zhang


    
Jim Peraino



  

  



## Disclaimer

The current [`v1.0.0-beta`](https://github.com/tracyhenry/Kyrix/releases/tag/v1.0.0-beta) release contains research-quality code, and is intended for demo purposes. The code should not be used for large-scale secure serving. Currently, [`v1.0.0-beta`](https://github.com/tracyhenry/Kyrix/releases/tag/v1.0.0-beta) only supports data with up to 10~100 millions of data records. We plan to release a distributed version of Kyrix in the future. 



## Citing Kyrix

```bibtex

@inproceedings{tao2019kyrix,

  title={Kyrix: Interactive pan/zoom visualizations at scale},

  author={Tao, Wenbo and Liu, Xiaoyu and Wang, Yedi and Battle, Leilani and Demiralp, {\c{C}}a{\u{g}}atay and Chang, Remco and Stonebraker, Michael},

  booktitle={Computer Graphics Forum},

  volume={38},

  number={3},

  pages={529--540},

  year={2019},

  organization={Wiley Online Library}

}

```