Vega and Vega-Lite visualisation grammars

	Vega (top), Vega-Lite (bottom)
Developer(s)	Jeffrey Heer, Arvind Satyanarayan, Dominik Moritz, Kanit Wongsuphasawat, and community
Initial release	2 April 2013; 12 years ago
Stable release	6.0.0 / 27 March 2025; 6 months ago
Written in	JavaScript
Type	Data visualization, JavaScript library
License	BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License
Website	vega.github.io

Vega and Vega-Lite are visualization tools implementing a grammar of graphics, similar to ggplot2. The Vega and Vega-Lite grammars extend Leland Wilkinson's Grammar of Graphics^[2] by adding a novel grammar of interactivity to assist in the exploration of complex datasets.

Vega acts as a low-level language suited to explanatory figures (the same use case as D3.js), while Vega-Lite is a higher-level language suited to rapidly exploring data.^[3] Vega is used in the backend of several data visualization systems, for example Voyager.^[4]^[5] Chart specifications are written in JSON and rendered in a browser or exported to either vector or bitmap images. Bindings for Vega-Lite have been written in several programming languages, such as the Python package Altair.^[6] The grammars and associated tools are open source projects led by the University of Washington Interactive Data Lab and released under a BSD-3 license.^[7]

References

^ "vega Releases". Github.com.
^ Wilkinson, Leland (1999). The Grammar of Graphics. New York: Springer. ISBN 9780387987743.
^ Satyanarayan, Arvind; Moritz, Dominik; Wongsuphasawat, Kanit; Heer, Jeffrey (2017). "Vega-Lite: A Grammar of Interactive Graphics". IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 23 (1): 341–350. doi:10.1109/TVCG.2016.2599030. PMID 27875150. S2CID 206805969.
^ Wongsuphasawat, Kanit; Moritz, Dominik; Anand, Anushka; MacKinlay, Jock; Howe, Bill; Heer, Jeffrey (2016). "Voyager: Exploratory Analysis via Faceted Browsing of Visualization Recommendations". IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 22 (1): 649–658. doi:10.1109/TVCG.2015.2467191. PMID 26390469. S2CID 2366653.
^ Wongsuphasawat, Kanit; Qu, Zening; Moritz, Dominik; Chang, Riley; Ouk, Felix; Anand, Anushka; MacKinlay, Jock; Howe, Bill; Heer, Jeffrey (2017). "Voyager 2". Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. pp. 2648–2659. doi:10.1145/3025453.3025768. ISBN 9781450346559. S2CID 14999239.
^ Vanderplas, Jacob; Granger, Brian; Heer, Jeffrey; Moritz, Dominik; Wongsuphasawat, Kanit; Satyanarayan, Arvind; Lees, Eitan; Timofeev, Ilia; Welsh, Ben; Sievert, Scott (2018). "Altair: Interactive Statistical Visualizations for Python". Journal of Open Source Software. 3 (32): 1057. Bibcode:2018JOSS....3.1057V. doi:10.21105/joss.01057.
^ "Vega: A Visualization Grammar". Vega.

[1] "vega Releases". Github.com.

[WilkinsonLeland1999Tgog-2] Wilkinson, Leland (1999). The Grammar of Graphics. New York: Springer. ISBN 9780387987743.

[3] Satyanarayan, Arvind; Moritz, Dominik; Wongsuphasawat, Kanit; Heer, Jeffrey (2017). "Vega-Lite: A Grammar of Interactive Graphics". IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 23 (1): 341–350. doi:10.1109/TVCG.2016.2599030. PMID 27875150. S2CID 206805969.

[4] Wongsuphasawat, Kanit; Moritz, Dominik; Anand, Anushka; MacKinlay, Jock; Howe, Bill; Heer, Jeffrey (2016). "Voyager: Exploratory Analysis via Faceted Browsing of Visualization Recommendations". IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 22 (1): 649–658. doi:10.1109/TVCG.2015.2467191. PMID 26390469. S2CID 2366653.

[5] Wongsuphasawat, Kanit; Qu, Zening; Moritz, Dominik; Chang, Riley; Ouk, Felix; Anand, Anushka; MacKinlay, Jock; Howe, Bill; Heer, Jeffrey (2017). "Voyager 2". Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. pp. 2648–2659. doi:10.1145/3025453.3025768. ISBN 9781450346559. S2CID 14999239.

[6] Vanderplas, Jacob; Granger, Brian; Heer, Jeffrey; Moritz, Dominik; Wongsuphasawat, Kanit; Satyanarayan, Arvind; Lees, Eitan; Timofeev, Ilia; Welsh, Ben; Sievert, Scott (2018). "Altair: Interactive Statistical Visualizations for Python". Journal of Open Source Software. 3 (32): 1057. Bibcode:2018JOSS....3.1057V. doi:10.21105/joss.01057.

[7] "Vega: A Visualization Grammar". Vega.

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