Choosing a visualization type
The Visualize application supports the following visualization types, grouped by category. Each description includes guidance describing when the visualization type is most effective. For more information, see the individual visualization type pages.
Text visualizations
Text visualizations display data using words and numbers rather than graphical elements. These provide detail and help key data stand out on a dashboard.
| Visualization type | Description |
|---|---|
Metric visualizations  | Displays a single numeric value prominently. Use for KPIs and summary statistics. |
Tag clouds  | Displays words sized by frequency or another metric. |
Data tables  | Displays raw or aggregated data in tabular form. |
One-dimensional visualizations
One-dimensional visualizations display a single bucketed data field, comparing values across categories or showing proportions.
| Visualization type | Description |
|---|---|
Gauge visualizations  | Displays a single value on a dial relative to defined ranges or thresholds. |
Goal visualizations  | Displays a single value on a progress bar relative to a target. |
Pie charts  | Displays proportional data as slices of a circle. Use for part-to-whole comparisons. |
Multidimensional visualizations
Multidimensional visualizations display one or more data fields as a function of another data field. The aggregations that bucket the data are numerical rather than categorical.
| Visualization type | Description |
|---|---|
Bar charts  | Compare categorical data as vertical or horizontal bars. Use for ranking or comparing values across categories. |
Area charts  | Displays data as a filled region between a line and the axis. Use for showing volume over time or comparing stacked categories. |
Heat maps  | Uses color intensity to represent values across two categorical dimensions. |
Line charts  | Plots data points connected by lines. Use for visualizing trends and changes over time. |
Map visualizations
Map visualizations plot data based on geographic region or coordinate.
| Visualization type | Description |
|---|---|
Coordinate maps  | Plots geographic data points on a map using latitude and longitude coordinates. |
Region maps  | Colors geographic regions by aggregated value. Supports custom GeoJSON vector maps. |
Maps application  | A standalone mapping tool with multiple layer types, tooltips, filters, and labels. |
Utility visualizations
Utility visualizations don’t display data directly but support other visualizations in the context of a dashboard.
| Visualization type | Description |
|---|---|
Markdown visualizations  | Renders Markdown text alongside data visualizations for context and instructions. |
Controls  | Adds interactive filter panels (dropdown lists or range sliders) to a dashboard. |
Other tools
The following visualization tools use specialized interfaces rather than the standard aggregation-based editor.
| Visualization type | Description |
|---|---|
PPL visualizations  | Creates visualizations by entering PPL queries directly. |
TSVB visualizations  | Creates detailed time-series visualizations with support for Area, Line, Metric, Gauge, Markdown, and Data Table types. |
Vega visualizations  | Uses the Vega and Vega-Lite declarative grammars for custom visualizations. |
VisBuilder  | A drag-and-drop tool for creating visualizations without selecting a chart type in advance. |
Timeline visualizations  | Uses a text-based expression syntax to create time-series visualizations. |