Session 2_phase1: using Unity to visualize data

For the first trial of visualizing data using Unity, I learn A LOT! I have to say, Unity is not the best tool to visualize data in 3D because there are lack of tutorials online.

To begin the process, I follow the only completed tutorial that I found, which is this source.

I successfully visualize the data using the dataset that it provided.

See the below image:

Then, I replaced the dataset with one of the files that was pre-approved. I choose the dataset, Clinical Trials: Participant Demographic Data download from ProPublica Data Store. After reviewing the dataset, I decided to visualize the women participants in different drugs with three different races: White, Black, and Asian.

Then, here comes the problems…

The original of Clinical Trials: Participant Demographic Data opened in TextEdit

When I first load the dataset from ProPublica Data Store, the CSVReader cannot read the original CSV file. When I opened the original dataset file in TextEdit, I found there are several “ that seems to mess up the file. So, I cleaned it and reloaded it again in Unity.

After deleting all the “ and opened again in Excel

After trying so many times, I found the CSV file format itself is unclean, which Unity’s CSVReader can’t recognize the data. So, I copied the entire dataset into the dataset file that was provided from the tutorial. Using the CSV format of the CSV file from the tutorial and deleted some of unnecessary columns in the file. Then, I reloaded it again in Unity.

Still, more problems…

The console shows that there are unrecognizable symbols such as %, N. First, I reorganize the dataset by deleting all the %. Then, I replace all of the weird expression, such as <1, N/A, NA, 5 or 6 infection with 0.

Unclean dataset that can’t be recoginzed in Unity

The dataset is very unclean, there are also many Unicode contain in the file. There CSVReader in Unity only recognize ASCR code but not unicode.

Many unicode appear in the dataset

So, I delete those blank that contain Unicode in it. Then, I reloaded again.

Finally, it works!

The edited version dataset that finally works in Unity.

Results:

The result

Thoughts & Improvement:

While working on the assignment, I faced so many different technical challenges, problems with the file format, and the unclean dataset. Also, I learn that Unity is not a comfortable environment to visualize data since the script I found can only read CSV file. I do not know if I can find other file reader script online that will support different dataset format.

I also found difficulty to clean up the data which I think there are better software which is data analytic oriented can solve this problem very easily. So, I think visualizing data in Unity will be very challenging for me.