LEGO set visualization using inventory from Rebrickable

[bddickenua]

Hi All.

I shared this in the Rebrickable forums the other day, but didn't get much of a response. I'm new to the forums here, but I wanted to share a project I've been working on. I'm a computer science student at the UofA. Me and a friend have been working on a data-vis project using the rebrickable set database for one of our classes. Here's the link:

benjdd.com/projects/lego-vis/client/

Since you are all obviously passionate about LEGOs, I figured this would be a great group to get feedback from and suggestions for improvement. The UI is a bit slow, but hopefully that will be worked out soon. If you have any feedback or suggestions, please let me know! I'm always looking for ways to make it better.

[Naijel]

Pretty cool. Thanks.

Takes a while to load but it's nice being able to click on the dots to see what set they are and where those sets sit compared to others.

[welfycat]

This is really neat, I like how it offers a different perspective on sets and how it all links together.

There were some things I didn't really understand, such as what the "most piece" sections were describing, and what it means by "average piece description length".

It also seems like the zoom/brush mode area is the most interesting visual area, but it doesn't go wide enough to really look at themes over time.

Great project though; great way to do something fun and useful for a class project!

[62Bricks]

A couple things:

First, there's a script that hangs up when I try to load it with Firefox on a Mac. Couldn't get it to proceed. It worked in Chrome, but was very slow.

Second, LEGO is very cool about fans using set and instruction images, etc., but using their logo on your page is a no-no. You might want to check out their guidelines here: http://www.lego.com/en-US/legal/legal-notice/fair-play

[bddickenua]

Thanks for the feedback all.

It also seems like the zoom/brush mode area is the most interesting visual area, but it doesn't go wide enough to really look at themes over time.

The scatterplots section on the left and the info panel on the right are a fixed width. The zoom/brush section is dynamically sized to fill up the rest of the screen real-estate. So, on small laptop screens and tablets it probably looks too small. On a large screen, the zoom/brush section dominates the page.

First, there's a script that hangs up when I try to load it with Firefox on a Mac. Couldn't get it to proceed. It worked in Chrome, but was very slow.

Interesting. I tested it with Firefox on linux (my primary OS) and worked ok. I'll have to boot up my old mac and test there too. And yes, the site is a bit sluggish - hope to improve that over time.

Second, LEGO is very cool about fans using set and instruction images, etc., but using their logo on your page is a no-no. You might want to check out their guidelines here: http://www.lego.com/...otice/fair-play

Great point! I'll make a note to change.