2022 Week 26 | Power BI: Polar Plots with Charticulator

Introduction

June is Music Month and this week we are getting arty with Charticulator.

In our previous Charticulator challenges, we designed with cartesian plots, spiral plots and tried our hand at nested charts.

For this challenge we use a Polar Scaffold to visualise songs segments by time/duration.

 

This challenge presumes some Power Query experience. A dataset is available to download in the Data Stories Gallery for those that want to skip ahead.

 

 

 

Requirements

  • Download the data for your favourite Beatles song <here> or use the PBIX with existing dataset from the Data Stories Gallery <here>
  • Model the data to create fields for Song Attribute, Attribute Name; Start; Finish; Adjusted Finish (calculation adding 0.1 sec to the start time for beats); and Duration (calculation subtracting Adjusted Finish from Start)
  • Song Attribute Attribute Name start finish AdjFinish duration
    A A 11.45907 12.921927 12.921927 1.462857
    A:min/b3 A:min/b3 24.856984 26.343061 26.343061 1.486077
    B B 17.443474 20.410362 20.410362 2.966888
    B B 165.581519 167.114036 167.114036 1.532517
    beat 1 1.126   1.226 0.1
    beat 2 1.463   1.563 0.1
    beat 3 1.834   1.934 0.1
    beat 4 2.194   2.294 0.1
    E E 161.065238 165.581519 165.581519 4.516281
    E E 168.646553 169.737409 169.737409 1.090856
    E:7/3 E:7/3 21.908049 23.370907 23.370907 1.462858
    E:7/3 E:7/3 45.720113 47.20619 47.20619 1.486077
    E:7/3 E:7/3 147.551224 149.060521 149.060521 1.509297
    E:9 E:9 169.737409 171.687173 171.687173 1.949764
    segment silence 0 2.612 2.612 2.612
    segment intro 2.612 8.424 8.424 5.812
    segment versea 8.424 20.41 20.41 11.986
    segment verseb 20.41 32.392 32.392 11.982
  • Get Charticulator Custom Visual from AppSource
  • Drag the Song Attribute, Attribute Name; Start; and Adjusted Finish fields into the Field Well
  • Start new Charticulator Chart
  • Drag the Song Attribute on to the Y Axis of the Plot Segment
  • Make sure the Plot Segment Sub-Layout type is set to Overlap
  • On the Glyph Canvas, draw a Data Axis between the first and last Vertical Guides
  • Drag the Start and Adjusted Finish fields on to the Data Axis
  • Draw a Rectangle Mark between the Start and Adjusted Finish points, ensure the Mark snaps to guides (If the Glyph Canvas is small and squishy, select the pin to pop-out and re-size. Also select the largest mark size on the main canvas)
  • Change the Name of the shape to “Segment”
  • Change the colour fill of the Rectangle Mark to bind to the Attribute Name
  • Add a new horizontal guide on the Glyph Canvas between the top and middle horizontal guides
  • Add a second horizontal guide between the middle and the bottom horizontal guide
  • Draw a second Rectangle Mark between the new horizontal guides and the Start and Adjusted Finish points.
  • Change the name of the shape to “Chord”
  • Change colour fill to black
  • Change the visibility of the chord shapes to not show for beats and segments
  • Scale4 D Auto update values Boolean Mapping A•min/b3 beat seqment Layers Attributes Width (none) ttribute start Value duration finish v Scales Scalel segment.Fill Scale4 chordMsible Symb011.Visible First First Average Average first(Attribute) Style
  • For the Segment Shape, adjust the colours to your liking, set the colours for the beats to “none” (ensure Auto Update Values is deselected) or set to the background colour of the visual
  • Hide visibility of the Data Axis
  • Change the scaffold to a Polar Scaffold, by selecting the Polar Scaffold option in the top menu bar and dragging the icon down on to the Main Canvas
  • Add dashed gridlines
  • Adjust the sort order of the Y axis to suit.

Dataset

This challenge uses the The Beatles Reference Annotations from isophonics.net http://isophonics.net/content/reference-annotations-beatles

Or you can download the PBIX from the Data Stories Gallery

Share

After you finish your workout, share on Twitter using the hashtags #WOW2022 and #PowerBI, and tag @JSBaucke@MMarie, @shan_gsd, @KerryKolosko, and @NerdyWithData. Also make sure to fill out the Submission Tracker so that we can count you as a participant this week in order to track our participation throughout the year. 

Solution

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