I have been worked on some data visualization projects in last few years for different kind of clients, used some different set of library/framework like backbonejs, raphaeljs, d3js. Start from this post, i’ll try to write down process on how we can do data visualization with modern technologies.

The data source will be http://data.police.uk , which include different crimes records in UK.

Install mongodb

Mongodb has many features like document, schemaless, query, etc, the reason i choose it is it’s very easy to load the data into it using mongoimport.

brew install mongodb

Start mongodb

mongod

Create database

use ukcrimes

Download data from http://data.police.uk/data/

Import data into database

mongoimport --db ukpolice --collection crimes --type csv --headerline --file file_path

Check imported data

mongo
use ukcrimes
db.crimes.find()  

You’ll see data like:

{ "_id" : ObjectId("544a7172d0e2b18dc73d060c"), "Crime ID" : "ca8de697ca1a5b0b1f76a3c0f3f652bf2e9e20a31fbf5af40df5de7fa55f63a4", "Month" : "2014-07", "Reported by" : "Avon and Somerset Constabulary", "Falls within" : "Avon and Somerset Constabulary", "Longitude" : "", "Latitude" : "", "Location" : "No location", "LSOA code" : "", "LSOA name" : "", "Outcome type" : "Offender given penalty notice" }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("544a7172d0e2b18dc73d060d"), "Crime ID" : "c50470f2a1af2a5fffaa3dd69218777200c1a9289b87dd36849325ed2585472e", "Month" : "2014-07", "Reported by" : "Avon and Somerset Constabulary", "Falls within" : "Avon and Somerset Constabulary", "Longitude" : "", "Latitude" : "", "Location" : "No location", "LSOA code" : "", "LSOA name" : "", "Outcome type" : "Offender given a drugs possession warning" }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("544a7172d0e2b18dc73d060e"), "Crime ID" : "b7458f39eb58018af53c85fd481aa2028e247baa30ceb1f095437359e78b63f6", "Month" : "2014-07", "Reported by" : "Avon and Somerset Constabulary", "Falls within" : "Avon and Somerset Constabulary", "Longitude" : "", "Latitude" : "", "Location" : "No location", "LSOA code" : "", "LSOA name" : "", "Outcome type" : "Suspect charged" }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("544a7172d0e2b18dc73d060f"), "Crime ID" : "3093f07675cd62ce39cc8eeb80261edb15d00cbee2bf2ece8d295ac6a0efab4e", "Month" : "2014-07", "Reported by" : "Avon and Somerset Constabulary", "Falls within" : "Avon and Somerset Constabulary", "Longitude" : "", "Latitude" : "", "Location" : "No location", "LSOA code" : "", "LSOA name" : "", "Outcome type" : "Suspect charged" }

To understand the data columns, you can check http://data.police.uk/about/

Query crimes stats

db.crimes.group({key: { 'Crime type': 1}, reduce: function(curr, result){ result.total += 1}, initial: { total: 0 } })

result:

[
{
    "Crime type" : "Anti-social behaviour",
    "total" : 5593
},
{
    "Crime type" : "Burglary",
    "total" : 888
},
{
    "Crime type" : "Criminal damage and arson",
    "total" : 1215
},
{
    "Crime type" : "Other theft",
    "total" : 1343
},
{
    "Crime type" : "Violence and sexual offences",
    "total" : 2123
},
{
    "Crime type" : "Drugs",
    "total" : 292
},
{
    "Crime type" : "Public order",
    "total" : 577
},
{
    "Crime type" : "Shoplifting",
    "total" : 1019
},
{
    "Crime type" : "Vehicle crime",
    "total" : 689
},
{
    "Crime type" : "Possession of weapons",
    "total" : 22
},
{
    "Crime type" : "Bicycle theft",
    "total" : 271
},
{
    "Crime type" : "Other crime",
    "total" : 88
},
{
    "Crime type" : "Theft from the person",
    "total" : 172
},
{
    "Crime type" : "Robbery",
    "total" : 91
}
]