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Google Fusion Tables

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Google Fusion Tables
Screenshot of Google Fusion Tables.
Type of site
Created byGoogle
URLgoogle.com/fusiontables
RegistrationOptional, included with a Google Account
Launched9 June 2009; 15 years ago (2009-06-09)
Current statusActive (To be discontinued in December 2019)

Google Fusion Tables (or simply Fusion Tables) was a web service provided by Google for data management. Fusion tables can be used for gathering, visualising and sharing data tables. Data are stored in multiple tables that Internet users can view and download.

The web service provided means for visualizing data with pie charts, bar charts, lineplots, scatterplots, timelines, network graphs, HTML-formatted card-layouts, and geographical maps. Data are exported in a comma-separated values file format. Visualizations could be embedded in other websites, and updated realtime as data in the table changed.

Google have announced they are retiring Fusion Tables on 3 Dec 2019.

Features

The size of uploaded data set was limited to 250 MB with a total limit of 1 GB per user.[1] An API allowed data to be ingested automatically. Visualizations were also embeddable into other web pages to support live-updating data within publications.

Fusion Tables was tightly integrated with the Google Maps geocoding service, as well as the Google Maps API, which supported an experimental FusionTablesLayer. Fusion Tables supported KML descriptions of geographic points, lines and polygons as a datatype within the tables. By providing a way to ingest, manage, merge and style larger quantities of data, Fusion Tables facilitated a blossoming of geographic story-telling. Many data journalists used these features to visualize information acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request as part of their published news stories.

Data types supported within the table view included standard strings, numbers but also images and KML.

Simple filtering tools provided automatic summaries of values in data columns, and allowed the visualized data to be filtered with checkboxes.

An HTML subset templating language supported customizable card layout and map infowindows displaying static and data field content. Incorporating a call to the Google Chart API could dynamically render a chart within the infowindow.

By supporting simple queries, embeddable HTML snippets for visualizations, and a simple HTML templating language for customizing layouts, Fusion Tables straddled the point-n-click world and the production software engineering world with a 'scriptable' functionality that allowed many data owners with limited software development time or expertise to develop highly custom, expressive websites and tools with their data. See examples.

History

Fusion Tables was inspired by the challenges of managing scientific data collections in multi-organization collaborations, such as the DNA barcoding collaboration between University of Pennsylvania ecologist Dan Janzen, the International Barcode of Life, and the University of Guelph.

The website launched as part of Google Labs in June 2009, announced by Alon Halevy and Rebecca Shapley.[2] The service was further described in a scientific paper in 2010.[3]

Maps Visualization

Following positive feedback about Fusion Tables' integration with the Intensity map in the Google Visualization API, the team worked closely with the Google Maps team to add support in Feb 2010 for KML point, line and polygon objects as a native datatype in the tables, visualized on top of Google Maps' basemap.[4] Additionally, some smarts were applied to detect data columns that described locations (like addresses) and to send them to Google's Geocoding service so they could be rendered on the map. Shortly thereafter in May 2010, the FusionTablesLayer was offered as an experimental feature of the Google Maps API.[5]

The integration of Fusion Tables with Google Maps through the FusionTablesLayer was Google's first foray into server-side rendering of users' data onto Google Maps tiles. Prior to the FusionTablesLayer, map pins were rendered on top of basemap tiles in the browser client. By creating many objects for the client to track, this could make maps slow, and effectively limited Google Maps to showing approximately 200 user data points. The FusionTablesLayer demonstrated fast, server-side rendering of large and complex user data onto the Google Maps base map.

The Fusion Tables SQL API supported sending filter queries to the FusionTablesLayer to dynamically adjust the data shown on the map. These maps could be embedded in another webpage with a simple snippet of HTML code. The open-sourced FusionTablesLayer Wizard point-n-click tool helped people create the snippets, and later the snippet was also available easily in the Fusion Tables UI. In May 2011, Fusion Tables added the ability to style (change the color or visual presentation of) data on the map, as well as default and simple HTML customizable infobubbles (shown when an item on the map is clicked) through both the web app and the APIs.[6]

Fusion Tables offered a readily accessible solution for working with data on a map that previously required clunky and expensive desktop software. It met many simple GIS use cases[7]. Fusion Tables was described in talks under the Geo track at Google IO.

Adoption

In October 2010, FusionTables demonstrated reliability under heavy traffic spikes when hosting the map visualization of the Iraqi War Deaths data set embedded in a news article from The Guardian. Shortly after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, crisis responders used Fusion Tables to reflect road status and shelters with close-to-realtime updates. Google's Crisis Response team continued to use Fusion Tables as a key tool for creating and updating relevant maps after a crisis.

In the 2011, as Google Labs was closed[8], Fusion Tables 'graduated' into the list of default features in Google Docs, under the title "Tables (beta)".

In April 2012, Fusion Tables created its own 'labs' track with several experimental features[9], including a new version of the user interface, a network graph visualization, and a preview of the revised Fusion Tables API, which officially launched in June 2012.

Merging tables continued to be a key, if difficult to discover, part of Fusion Tables. Merging tables was, for example, a great way to use publicly available authoritative KML boundaries for places many people might have data about, such as counties or electoral districts. In August 2012, Fusion Tables launched integration with Table Search[10], another Google Research project from Alon Halevy.

Fusion Tables was described in talks at the NICAR conference.

Deprecation

In December 2018, Google announced that it would retire Fusion Tables on 3 December 2019.[11] An open-source archive tool was created to export existing Fusion Tables maps to an open-sourced visualizer. [12]

Fusion Tables had an avid following that was disappointed to learn of the deprecation.[13] [14]

References

  1. ^ "Google Fusion Tables Help: Type and size of files to import". Google. Retrieved 13 June 2012.
  2. ^ Alon Halevy; Rebecca Shapley (9 June 2009). "Google Fusion Tables". Google. Retrieved 13 June 2012.
  3. ^ Hector Gonzalez, Alon Halevy, Christian S. Jensen, Anno Langen, Jayant Madhavan, Rebecca Shapley, Warren Shen (2010). Google Fusion Tables: Data Management, Integration and Collaboration in the Cloud (PDF). SoCC'10. ACM. Retrieved 23 March 2013.{{cite conference}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ "Mapping your data with Google Fusion Tables". Google Lat Long. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  5. ^ "Map your data with the Maps API and Fusion Tables". Google Maps Platform. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  6. ^ "Make beautiful interactive maps even faster with new additions to the Fusion Tables API". Google AI Blog. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  7. ^ "Cloud Mapping: Google Fusion Tables". Cartographic Perspectives. 6 October 2012. Retrieved 14 November 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. ^ "More wood behind fewer arrows". Official Google Blog. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  9. ^ "Working with your Data: Easier and More Fun". Google AI Blog. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  10. ^ "Better table search through Machine Learning and Knowledge". Google AI Blog. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  11. ^ Li, Abner (11 December 2018). "Google shutting down Fusion Tables next year, teases new data visualizations tools". 9to5Google. Archived from the original on 22 March 2019. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
  12. ^ "Fusion Tables Archive Tool". fusiontables-archive.withgoogle.com. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  13. ^ Melendez, Steven (11 December 2018). "RIP Fusion Tables: Google is killing off the beloved data visualization tool". Fast Company. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  14. ^ Machlis, Sharon (11 December 2018). "Google will shut down Fusion Tables". Computerworld. Retrieved 15 November 2019.


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