Data Visualizer

Data Visualizer displays text file stock market type data
("Date,Open,High,Low,Close,Volume,Adjusted Close Price")
as Stock Charts, featuring a variation of Japanese "Candlesticks" chart elements

Data Visualizer Stock charts have some features
which you might not find on other stock charts

the Visualizer Stock Chart time grid delineates Mondays,
and inserts time space for weekends,
such that weekly time units are easily visualized

charts are enhanced with an innovation candlestick "shadow" feature,
the size of which is proportional to the day's volume
which corresponds to the superimposed candlestick price data

Click to view larger imagee

Data Visualizer is a self contained Eclipse Java implementation

I currenly only have a very beta
Windows based implementation available

the current distribution can be downloaded from :
file download

unzip the distribution wherever you would like it

the application resides within the "/eclipse/" subdirectory
of the unzipped installation directory

start the application via: "Visualizer.exe"
located in the "/eclipse/" subdirectory
of the unzipped installation directory

you need to also download "visualizer_sampledata_date.zip"
and unzip that sample data wherever you would like it

the first time you run Visualizer
you will need to specify the base directory
where the installation can find its input data

the "input" data base directory
should be the parent directory of the
"data" and "models" subdirectories

the Eclipse framework will store User Preferences
in each user's home directory

Data Visualizer will read text based input data files
and display Stock Charts of their contained data

StockChartDataModels are constructed from
2 types of input text files
for each "Ticker Symbol":

a ".csv" Comma Seperated Value spreadsheet file
which contains the daily price data
with expected spreadsheet 7 column data format of:
"Date,Open,High,Low,Close,Volume,Adjusted Close Price"
with each day's price data occupying a seperate data line

and an optional parameter text file ".txt"
which can define additional data for each "Ticker Symbol"
for example file(a.txt):

Ticker Symbol = "A"
Company Name = "Agilent Technologies Inc."
Category Name = "Technology"
Industry Name = "Scientific & Technical Instruments"
Price to Earnings ratio = 50.75

each parameter on a seperate data line,
with an "equals sign" seperating each parameter name from its corresponding value

parameter values enclosed by quotation marks
are interpreted as being a String parameter value

while values without quotation marks are expected to be float values in text form

if there exists "Category Name" and "Industry Name" data
within a parameter text file for a ticker symbol
that data will be parsed into Visualizer's
"Category" and "Industry" navigation tree nodes

after reading input text data (spreadsheet and parameter text files)
Visualizer will try to load any model data which it finds
in the "input\models\company" directory

Model Data must be in the current "StockChartModel.java" format
which Visualizer inputs via: "java.io.Serializable"

downloaded sample data
might be of rather esoteric format

for example Bollinger Bands are calculated based upon
standard linear moving averages,
however the displayed Moving Average data
would probably be exponential moving average
which applies more weight to the more recent data in the trend

I would suggest caution about trying to input
very large quantities of input files to this beta release version,
memory management issues are still under development

"SymbolLists" are simple text files
which are stored in the "portfolio", "watchlist", and "index" subdirectories
of the "input" "data" base directory

each SymbolList being a ".txt" file

a colon ":" seperates the list name from
the ticker symbols of the list elements,

empty space " " seperates each ticker symbol

ticker symbols can be on more then one data line in the text file

a final semicolon ";" designates the end of the list

input data for Ticker Symbols listed within SymbolLists
must be already parsed into Visualizer
for reference nodes to be added to the navigation tree

items in the navigation tree
can be cycled through via the keyboard arrow keys

navigation tree / stock chart window divider
can be repositioned via mouse drag

stock chart display window can be maximized
via icon in that window's upper right corner

if you encounter any runtime problems, you might try:
"Help" menu : "About Visualizer" : "Configuration Details" : "View Error Log"
which should be readable via Wordpad

and might give some clue
as to what might be going wrong

I hope to implement modular expansion sockets
such that enhancement modules could be easily plugged into
the integrated environment

I am currently experimenting with
a 3-Dimensional stock chart plug-in,

as well as other modular enhancements

this webpage was last updated on: March 27, 2006