ViSSh: A Data Visualisation Spreadsheet

Abstract

We describe a data visualisation system which uses spreadsheets as its user interface metaphor. Similar systems implemented in the past were hampered by the contradiction between an imperative formula language and the declarative spreadsheet framework. We have analysed spreadsheets from a data visualisation point of view, and built a system that is an improvement over past efforts. Our prototype combines the following three techniques: we störe lists of values in each spreadsheet cell; we use a functional programming language as the formula language and we make use of lazy evaluation. The novel combination of these techniques makes our system consistently declarative in nature, and gives it several advantages such as small, uncluttered visual programs, the ability to deal with potentially infinite datasets and the use of advanced functional language features