G2: A customizable web-based framework for authoring interactive visualizations

Specifying visual encodings and interactions is exhausting but essential for authoring interactive visualizations. In this paper, we present G2, a customizable framework designed to support rapid generation of interactive visualizations with uniform specifications. G2 employs a data-driven grammar of graphics and defines a uniform set of interaction specifications. We discuss the design and implementation of G2 with rich examples, and a user interview to demonstrate its effectiveness. Since its first release in March 2016, G2 has undergone 360 iterations, received 12,000 stars, and supported over 22,600 related projects on Github.

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Publication Details

Journal
Visual Informatics
Published
2026-02-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visinf.2026.100307
Primary Topic
Data Visualization and Analytics
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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G2: A customizable web-based framework for authoring interactive visualizations

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G2: A customizable web-based framework for authoring interactive visualizations

Zhifeng Lin, Bairui Su, Wei J. Chen, Minfeng Zhu, zhiwei wang, Xiaojuan Liao, Zihan Zhou
article en

Abstract

Specifying visual encodings and interactions is exhausting but essential for authoring interactive visualizations. In this paper, we present G2, a customizable framework designed to support rapid generation of interactive visualizations with uniform specifications. G2 employs a data-driven grammar of graphics and defines a uniform set of interaction specifications. We discuss the design and implementation of G2 with rich examples, and a user interview to demonstrate its effectiveness. Since its first release in March 2016, G2 has undergone 360 iterations, received 12,000 stars, and supported over 22,600 related projects on Github.

Visual Informatics
Zhejiang University (CN)
Openalex Percentile: Top 68%
Data Visualization and Analytics
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