Show HN: Data Formulator – AI-powered data visualization from Microsoft Research
107 points
12 hours ago
| 6 comments
| github.com
| HN
Creating data visualizations with AI nowadays often means chat, chat and more chats...and writing long prompts can be annoying while they are also not the most effective way to describe your visualization designs.

Data Formulator blends UI interaction with natural language so that you can create visualizations with AI much more effectively!

You can:

* create rich visualizations beyond initial datasets, where AI helps transforming and visualizing data along the way

* iterate your designs and dive deeper using data threads, a new way to manage your conversation with AI.

Here is a demo video: https://github.com/microsoft/data-formulator/releases/tag/0....

Give it a shot and let us know how it looks like!

matt3D
1 hour ago
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After giving it a whirl I'm a little underwhelmed, but maybe I'm using it wrong. I'm getting less consistent results than if I prompted GPT4-o for a Vega graph after providing it with the documentation.
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goose-
1 hour ago
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Since Data Formulator performs data transformation on your behalf to get the desired visualization, how can we verify those transformations are not contaminated by LLM hallucinations, and ultimately, the validity of the visualization?
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larodi
1 hour ago
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We can’t. Without the driver this car runs on probability. And that all. A capable operator is still needed in the loop.
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hggigg
10 minutes ago
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I rather like this idea. Apologies however for my cynicism in advance. I suspect it'll die due to human concerns. I've seen many reports recently which are just plain and utterly wrong written in dashboards by vendors and internally. The veracity of the results is mostly based on the human driving it and validating the methodology and the competent ones are apparently rather rare. This serves to give it to humans who are even worse at the job than the current ones.
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marktl
4 hours ago
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Definitely looks like something that could save me, and others, allot of time. Thanks for sharing!
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donq1xote1
1 hour ago
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Thanks for sharing and provide open source version! This is great!
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data_ders
6 hours ago
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way cool! I hope to take it for a spin tomorrow!

Q: Does your team see potential value in a DSL for succinctly describing visualizations to an LLM as Hex did with their DSL for Vega-lite specs [1]?

[1]: https://hex.tech/blog/making-ai-charts-go-brrrr/

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chenglong-hn
5 hours ago
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Wow, that's pretty cool! I think there are potential -- current LLMs are not that good on VegaLite when I ask it to edit the script :)
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