topic Re: Motion Chart and 3D Cube in PowerBI in R Script Showcase

Motion Chart and 3D Cube in PowerBI

boosalis — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 14:00:07 GMT

Select between the visuals using the select boxes at the top of the screen.

I always wanted to be able to have a decent motion chart and draggable 3D cube in Power BI.

Select between the visuals using the select boxes at the top of the screen.

I tried to use code from the packages that render these visualizations using MS R and Power BI, but my efforts were unsuccessful.

What did work was using the HTML visualizer from the PBI Marketplace. I exported the HTML from the R Studio for the motion cart and the cube, and then dropped the files into webspace. Once I added the URLs to the visualizer in PBI and published it to the web, I finally got what I wanted.

Yeah, it’s quite a bit of a hack, but I’m happy anyway.

Note that you can rotate the cube, select items on the legend, and push the play button on the motion chart.

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Re: Motion Chart and 3D Cube in PowerBI

odeddror — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 19:39:35 GMT

Nice jub, can you please share the R code?

Re: Motion Chart and 3D Cube in PowerBI

boosalis — Sat, 11 Feb 2023 01:00:37 GMT

odeddror

Suely! I cant seem to add the .r file, so I will just post it here. After running the code in R studio, exporting the plots in HTML, and uploading the files to a server, I dropped the URLs in the sample .pbi file that comes with the HTML 5 widget from the market place. Hope that it helps others.

3D Cube in R

#################################################### #I loaded each section by hand to avoid errors in R Studio library(plotly) library(htmltools) library(htmlwidgets) library(rmarkdown) library(xfun) library(iris) library(stringr) library(datasets) data(iris) #This is the famous iris dataset. rep_str = c('setosa'='1','versicolor'='2','virginica'='3') iris$Species <- str_replace_all(iris$Species, rep_str) iris$Species #I changed the species to suit my demo. iris$Species <- as.numeric(as.character(iris$Species)) iris$Species[which(iris$Species == 1)] <- '1. Initial Observation'; iris$Species[which(iris$Species == 2)] <- '2. Midterm Observation'; iris$Species[which(iris$Species == 3)] <- '3. Final Observation'; iris$Species <- as.factor(iris$Species) #Color the plot points. fig <- plot_ly(iris, type= "scatter3d", mode = "markers", x = ~Sepal.Length, y = ~Sepal.Width, z = ~Petal.Length, color = ~iris$Species, colors = c('#BF382A', '#0C4B8E', '#0bfc03')) #Legend Labels g <- fig %>% add_markers() g <- fig %>% layout(scene = list(xaxis = list(title = 'Supervisor Evaluation'), yaxis = list(title = 'Student Self-Evaluation'), zaxis = list(title = 'Months in Program'))) #Generate the plot g #################################################### #The code was cobbled together from various help forums; I merely cobbled. #I saved the plot as a webpage and dropped the files into a web host. #PowerbI needs the URL to the html file to load the plot in the HTML 5 Widget. #Repeat for Motion Chart

GapMinder Motion Chart

#This is all from plotly. library(plotly) library(gapminder) df <- gapminder fig <- df %>% plot_ly( x = ~gdpPercap, y = ~lifeExp, size = ~pop, color = ~continent, frame = ~year, text = ~country, hoverinfo = "text", type = 'scatter', mode = 'markers' ) fig <- fig %>% layout( xaxis = list( type = "log" ) ) fig

I used the HTML Content thingy from the market place to create the demo. The sample file is there, and I just modified the links and the look in PBI.

Regards,

Chris B.

Re: Motion Chart and 3D Cube in PowerBI

odeddror — Sat, 11 Feb 2023 05:16:45 GMT

Chris,

Thank you