George's BI Blog

In a recent POC project, I have to produce the data visualization over custom images, namely, floor maps. I’ll briefly talk about what I did for Excel 2013 and Tableau 8.2.4
Excel 2013

The only option is to use VBA Macro. I know, I know, VBA should be the past and we should avoid using it. However, with Excel 2013, it is the only option. Basically, I insert a image (floor map, PNG format preferred). “Format” ribbon –> “Color” –> “Set to Transparent Color”. Once you got the floor map displayed, “Insert” ribbon –> insert a shape to overlay the shape on top of the floor map. You can also set the shape to be transparent, as shown below. Of course, in the final solution, the transparent level should be controlled via the VBA code.

Excel 2013 allow you to assign Macro to all your shapes and custom images and text box. This is the entry point you can do some very powerful interactive features to your workbook.

Tableau 8.2

Tableau is no doubt the best commercial data visualization software and the overall dashboard design experience is awesome.

Tableau 8.2 floor map visulisation