Sep
13
Data visualization
Today is "Data management, mining, curation and visualization" day at the Genome Informatics conference in Hinxton. It might be one of the more interesting ones for me, because that's what I do: manage, mine, curate and attempt to visualize. And I must say the last bit the most difficult. It's not difficult to upload results into a genome browser, but is it the best way?
I say we have to break free from the track. Ninety percent of all visualizations today in genomics is track-based (add DAS tracks to Ensembl, upload BED files to UCSC or run your own gbrowse). It's ideal for showing features on a chromosome, but it's used even if it's not the optimal tool (a feature shared with Microsoft Excel, but let's not go there).
I say we have to break free from the track. Ninety percent of all visualizations today in genomics is track-based (add DAS tracks to Ensembl, upload BED files to UCSC or run your own gbrowse). It's ideal for showing features on a chromosome, but it's used even if it's not the optimal tool (a feature shared with Microsoft Excel, but let's not go there).
