Prototyping Python Dashboards for Scientists and Engineers

✍ Scribed by Padraig Houlahan

• Publisher: Apress
• Year: 2024
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 220
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Create interactive and data-driven dashboards using Python. This hands-on guide is a practical resource for those (with modest programming skills) in scientific and engineering fields looking to leverage Python's power for data visualization and analysis in a user-friendly dashboard format. You’ll begin by gaining a fundamental understanding of Python programming, including data types, lists, dictionaries, and data structures. The book then delves into the world of reactive programming with Plotly and Dash, offering a hands-on approach to building interactive web-based dashboards. Next, you’ll see how to work with online data, how to scrape and clean datasets, and keep files up-to-date. The book also guides you through planning a dashboard prototype, outlining project tasks, trends, forecasts, spectra, and other design considerations. It concludes with a discussion of how the dashboard can be used for data visualization of real data, explaining the usefulness of tools such as spectra. By providing detailed examples for download and customization, Prototyping Python Dashboards for Scientists and Engineers will equip you with the skills needed to jumpstart your own development efforts. What You’ll Learn Design a dashboard with Python Convert and filter Excel formatted files to produce CSV files Create browser-served graphics with PLOTLY Generate polynomial trend lines for forecasting Build a Unix service to share your dashboard Who This Book Is For Scientists, engineers, students, programmers, and data enthusiasts who aspire to harness Python's potential for data visualization and analysis through the creation of interactive dashboards. Many will be pragmatic programmers with modest skills and limited resources who mainly want to see a working solution they could emulate.

✦ Table of Contents

Table of Contents
About the Author
About the Technical Reviewer
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Working with Python
Coding Design: Python and OOD
Python Data Types
Lists, Tuples, and Sets
Dictionaries
Series
Dataframes
Building Dataframes
Accessing Dataframe Rows and Columns
Using loc[ ] and iloc[ ] to Access by Position
Filtering – Extracting Elements by Value
The Spyder IDE
Summary
Chapter 2: Reactive Programming with PLOTLY and DASH
Getting Started with PLOTLY
Getting Started with DASH
Summary
Chapter 3: Working with Online Data
About the ATADS Dataset
ATADS Screen Scraping
Converting Excel to CSV with Data Cleanup
Managing and Keeping Our Files Up to Date
Summary
Chapter 4: Planning the Dashboard Prototype
Overview
Project Tasks
Trends and Forecasts
Other Design Considerations
Summary
Chapter 5: Our First Dashboard
The atads.py File
The atads_layout Class
The atads_figures Class
Initialization
Variable Name Management
Miscellaneous Variable Initialization
Class Methods
I/O and Variable Name Utilities
The update_mainchart() Method
Methods for Drawing Raw and Smoothed Data
Methods to Enhance Chart Visual Appeal
Methods to Add Polynomial Curve Fits
Fine-Tuning with CSS
Summary
Chapter 6: Dashboard Enhancements
Adding the Banner and the  Instruction Panels
Monthly and Weekday Histogram Panels
The Spectrum Panel
Quantifying Weekly and Seasonal Effects
The Final ATADS Dashboard
Summary
Chapter 7: Hosting an Application on a UNIX Server
Creating the Python Environment
Running a Flask Application
Using uWSGI
Using GUNICORN
Summary
Chapter 8: Deploying Your Project As a UNIX Service
Creating a Hello World System Service
Using NGINX to Share Your Hello World App
Adding the Dashboard Project to Your Server
Creating the Dashboard System Service and Deploying with NGINX
Securing Your Server
Summary
Chapter 9: The BTS T100 Dataset: Interacting Controls and Tables
The BTS T100dm Dataset
Prototyping a T100dm Display
Managing Modes and Interacting Menus
Figures and Tables
Summary
Chapter 10: Creating a Web Portal
Troubleshooting WordPress
Summary
Chapter 11: Using Our Dashboard for Data Visualization and Analysis
Airport Type, Trends, and Location
Airshows and Seasonal – Using Spectra
Incorporating Models
Media, Presentations, Reports, and Projects
Summary
Chapter 12: Afterword
Appendix A: Utilities for Managing ATADS Data
Notes
Data Update Process
Index