Shiny_R

Inspiration

Interactive graphics can transform static graphics into interactive dataset that allows user to explore more additional layer of information. Interactive graphics can also change the way of accessing and sharing scientific information.

R is an open source language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. It provides a wide variety of statistical and graphical techniques. Shiny is an open source R package that provides a web framework for building web applications using R . It can be run locally from user’s computer or remotely from a server. Shiny web applications have been used in the science community to provide an interactive way to visualize the data.

What it does

In this project, an interactive graphic platform was built using Shiny to enable interactive visualization of data and analysis result for decision support.

How I built it

The shiny app was composed of two parts: ui.R and server.R. ui.R is an HTML user interface which organizes the layout and collects input values from user, and outputs the result. server.R serves as the backend to process and manipulate the data and generate result.

Challenges I ran into

The default maximum file size is set by the options function at the beginning of the server.R code. User can enlarge the maximum file size limit to allow larger files. However, Shiny can be slow in processing files larger than 200 MB.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

This Shiny app is an integration of graphic capability and statistical analysis.

What I learned

Shiny is free and open source compared to commercial visualization tool Tableau. Based on R programming language, Shiny allows the integration of more advanced statistical tools compared to Tableau.

Since R is constantly evolving, the periodic maintenance of this platform might be necessary.

What's next for Shiny_R

The Shiny app code can be further customized or extended using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. And additional functions can be easily added to the existing platform.

Built With

• r