Data scientists often face the challenge of making complex and large amounts of data both comprehensible and actionable. With Viam, you can collect and capture sensor data that might be difficult to understand without the right visualization tools.
Enter Tableau, a popular and powerful tool that’s a game-changer for data visualization. By leveraging Tableau, you can transform heaps of raw sensor data from Viam’s data management service into insightful visualizations. This not only makes the data easier to interpret but also enhances inference, decision-making, trend predictions, and more.
Connecting Viam sensor data to Tableau
The first step in making beautiful charts and beyond with sensor data through Viam is to collect enough data to visualize. You can learn how to do this in our Data Capture docs. Make sure to enable cloud sync so you can access all of your data from the data management service where the sensor data is synced and stored.
The next step is to configure database access for your Organization by using the Viam CLI to set up a new read-only database user for the Viam organization’s data. Using this direct database connection in Tableau enables seamless data importing for your visualization.
You will need to use Tableau for Desktop, instead of the cloud version, to configure the direct database connectivity with the MongoDB Tableau Connector.
First, download the Mongo DB JDBC Driver and move the downloaded .jar file into the appropriate directory for your operating system. Then, download the MongoDB Tableau Connector and move the downloaded .taco file into the ‘Connectors’ folder in the ‘My Tableau Repository’ folder in your documents. This allows the creation of a custom connector that enables Tableau to communicate with the MongoDB Atlas product.
Create a new database connection in the desktop app and search for ‘MongoDB Atlas by MongoDB’ under ‘Installed Connectors’. Authenticate with the connector using the credentials set for your Organization using the Viam CLI.
- MongoDB URI: ‘mongodb://<YOUR DATA FEDERATION HOSTNAME STRING>’
- Database: ‘sensorData’
- Username: ‘db-user-<YOUR ORG ID>
- Password: Whatever password you set when configuring the database.
You can then choose to import all of the data from your organization, or you can filter down to specific parameters such as a particular machine or sensor component if you want to narrow down the data included in Tableau.
When you have all your desired data loaded into Tableau with a live data source, you can begin organizing your data by splitting sensor readings into different table rows, renaming your readings, and organizing them into tables however you want. Once you have organized your data sources into different sub-tables, it is as simple as dragging and dropping the desired sub-tables into different visualization templates.
Once the data is imported into Tableau, the next step is to design visualizations that convey meaningful insights. You can consider different visualizations for different types of data interpretation:
Time-Series Analysis: Line charts are the go-to for spotting trends and patterns over time. This is particularly useful for monitoring sensor data such as temperature, humidity, or motion over specific periods.
Interactive Dashboards: Build interactive dashboards that let users dig into specific data points, apply filters, and see real-time updates. Dashboards can make your data more engaging and help you dive deeper into the analysis at a glance.
Heatmaps and Scatter Plots: Want to spot correlations and anomalies? Heatmaps and scatter plots can be the answer. A heatmap can show you the intensity of sensor readings across different areas, while a scatter plot might uncover relationships between various sensor data types.
The benefits of using Tableau for sensor data
By visualizing Viam data in Tableau, data scientists can turn a data dump into valuable insights that drive smarter decision-making and more. Tableau's extensive customization options let you tailor visualizations to specific needs and preferences, ensuring the most relevant insights are front and center for analysis.
Additionally, thanks to Tableau's live data connections, you can keep an eye on sensor data in real-time, allowing for quick responses to critical changes as your machine is collecting data in the real world. Get started with visualizing important machine data with Viam today.
