Research & Subject Guides: Data Visualization Guide: Resources: Tools

Google Workspace

Google Workspace offers plenty of options for data visualizations. You can use Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Sheets, or Google Drawings for basic visualizations. Charts and graphs created in one Google Workspace product can be linked to the other products, allowing for automatic updates when the source data changes, and eliminating the need to recreate them.

Everyone at Stony Brook University except Hospital employees and members of the School of Medicine and School of Dental Medicine can access Stony Brook's Google Workspace using NetID.

You can build dynamic and interactive reports and dashboard with Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio). You can also build your own custom maps on top of Google Maps with Google My Maps.

Types of charts & graphs in Google Sheets
Explore all charts & graphs supported by Google Sheets and learn how to create them.
Learn Looker Studio
The official support page by Google. Find your way around Looker Studio and learn how to use it with the available tutorials here.
Get Stated with My Maps
Learn how to create, open, manage, and share your map here.

Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 (formerly Microsoft Office) provides some built-in tools for general charting and graphing which work best for beginners, quick visualizations, and simple datasets.

Everyone at Stony Brook University can use their Stony Brook email address and password to access the cloud-based Microsoft 365 or download and install desktop apps on up to 5 PCs/Macs and unlimited mobile devices through this portal.

Available chart types in Office
When you create a chart in an Excel worksheet, a Word document, or a PowerPoint presentation, you have a lot of options. For a description of each chart type, follow the link and select an option from the available drop-down list.
Chart templates
Chart design templates for print, presentations, and more. Customize on Excel or PowerPoint.
Create a chart in Excel from start to finish
Step-by-step guides on how to create a charts in Excel on Windows, Mac, or Web from start to finish. Some guides include video tutorials.

Canva

Canva is a free-to-use online graphic design tool for creating social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos and more.

Graph Maker
Canva's graph maker provides more than 20 professional types of graphs to choose from for your data visualization project.

Datawrapper

Datawrapper lets you show your data as interactive and responsive charts, maps or tables with a few clicks. You can copy & paste data table, upload a CSV/XLS files, connect Google Sheet documents, or link external data sources that you want to visualize.

Datawrapper is free and no sign-up required to use. However, you can create a free account to manage your visualization projects.

Academy
Learn how to build charts, maps, and tables with Datawrapper here.
River
The Datawrapper River is a place to exchange charts and maps with other Datawrapper users. After adding a chart to the River, anyone can use it and customize the chart in Datawrapper before publishing it on their website in their own style.

Tableau

Tableau is a visual analytics platform that helps you turn data into actionable insights.

Free One-Year License for Students
Full-time students at accredited, credit-bearing academic institutions worldwide are eligible for a free one-year license to activate Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep. Complete the form below to confirm your eligibility and unlock your free license. You must be 16 years of age or older to request a license.
Free License for Teaching and Non-Commercial Academic Research
Tableau offers instructors at accredited, degree-granting, academic institutions free access to our software and resources. Always renewable, always free, forever. Please submit proof (faculty webpages, course syllabi, appointment letters, etc.) that you’re actively teaching to receive your licenses.
Tableau Public
A free platform to explore, create, and publicly share data visualizations online.
Free Training Videos
Learn how to prepare, analyze, and share your data (Creator).
Learn how to work with your data on the web (Explorer).
Learn how to interact with content right from your browser (Viewer).

Python

Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language. It is portable, and it runs on many Unix variants including Linux and macOS, and on Windows.

PyCharm
The Python IDE for data science and web development by JetBrains. Students and academic staff members are eligible to use PyCharm and all other JetBrains tools for free, upon verification of their university/college domain email or ISIC card.
Jupyter
Jupyter is an open-source software, free for all to use that aims to support interactive data science and scientific computing.
Choose between Jupyter Notebook, which has a simpler, more lightweight interface, or JupyterLab, which offers a more versatile and feature-rich experience. The app can be downloaded for desktop use, or it can be tried directly in a web browser without any installation.
Google Colab
Google Colab is cloud-based Jupyter Notebook service hosted by Google that requires no setup to use and provides free access to computing resources, including Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and Tensor Processing Units (TPUs).
Everyone with access to Stony Brook's Google Workspace can access Google Colab. Python3 is the default runtime type on Google Colab.

Python's application in data visualization is supported with various plotting libraries, such as:

Matplotlib
Matplotlib is a comprehensive library for creating static, animated, and interactive visualizations in Python. Matplotlib makes easy things easy and hard things possible.
Seaborn
Seaborn is a Python data visualization library based on matplotlib. It provides a high-level interface for drawing attractive and informative statistical graphics.
Bokeh
Bokeh is a Python library for creating interactive visualizations for modern web browsers based on The Grammar of Graphics, and it's native to Python.
Plotly.py
Plotly provides open-source graphing libraries for creating interactive charts and maps in various programming languages, including Python, R, Julia, JavaScript, ggplot2, F#, MATLAB®, and Dash.
Folium
Folium makes it easy to visualize data that’s been manipulated in Python on an interactive leaflet map. It enables both the binding of data to a map for choropleth visualizations as well as passing rich vector/raster/HTML visualizations as markers on the map.

R

R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. It compiles and runs on a wide variety of UNIX platforms, Windows and MacOS. RStudio Desktop is the most commonly used integrated development environment (IDE) for R, and its cloud-based version is available on Posit Cloud, which offers both free and paid plans. R is also supported by other IDEs, such as:

Jupyter
To run a JupyterLab or Jupyter Notebook with R, create a conda environment and activate the R kernel first.
Google Colab
Everyone with access to Stony Brook's Google Workspace can access Google Colab.
To use R in Google Colab, go to "Runtime" > "Change runtime type", switch from "Python3" to "R", and click "Save".

R's application in data visualization is supported with various plotting libraries, such as:

ggplot2
ggplot2 is a system for declaratively creating graphics, based on The Grammar of Graphics. You provide the data, tell ggplot2 how to map variables to aesthetics, what graphical primitives to use, and it takes care of the details.
Lattice
Lattice is a powerful and elegant high-level data visualization system inspired by Trellis graphics, with an emphasis on multivariate data. Lattice is sufficient for typical graphics needs, and is also flexible enough to handle most nonstandard requirements.
Leaflet
Leaflet is an open-source JavaScript library for interactive maps. This R package makes it easy to create Leaflet maps from R.
Highcharter
Highcharter is a R wrapper for Highcharts javascript library and its modules. Highcharts is very flexible and customizable javascript charting library and it has a great and powerful API.
Plotly.R
Plotly provides open-source graphing libraries for creating interactive charts and maps in various programming languages, including Python, R, Julia, JavaScript, ggplot2, F#, MATLAB®, and Dash.

Data Visualization Guide

Google Workspace

Microsoft 365

Canva

Datawrapper

Tableau

Python

R

Library

Resources

Follow Us