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Experimenting with Google's Visualization APIs and some data from Statistics Canada.
The first chart shows Canada's defence spending over the last several decades (in millions of Canadian dollars). This graph's simplicity is pretty easy to understand. This graph tells us that the defence spending in Canada has increased over time, with a reduction during the 1990s. (Hint: move your mouse over the line in the chart)
This graph shows the national defence budget as a portion of Canada's GDP. Again, we have a straightforward graph, however the message it conveys is quite different than in the first graph. Here we see a steady decline in spending as a percentage of GDP (with a small uptick after 2000.
The controls on the left allow you to change the vertical scale of the graph (between linear and logarithmic). You can also alter the date set (national defence in dollars or as a percentage of GDP).
One can combine these multiple variables in a "bubble" chart. In this chart, we have the defence budget (in millions of dollars) over time, as shown in the very first graph. The size and color of each circle/bubble is the %GDP for that year. This graph can be animated by dragging the slider below the graph. Alternately, you can click on the play button to watch the graph drawn over time.
This graph reveals the control panel on the right side, allowing you to experiment with the colors, bubble sizes, drawing graph tails, etc. Have fun!