A KNime Visual Example

This exercise will utilize the file named marathon again to give you a sense of how to use a visual node in
Knime.

1. Create a project in Knime named KNIME_Visual.

2. Locate the marathon file from the previous download.
3. The following repeats the steps from exercise two. If you remember how to setup the CSV file
reader for this exercise, you can go to step 12.
4. In the Knime project you created, look to the left and you should see the IO category as the first
group in the Node Repository.

5. Click on the arrow next to it to open the categories input/output. Do the same for the “Read”
level. You will see a list of tools that can be used to open files to read into your KNime project:

6. Although it uses tabs instead of commas, we will still use the CSV Reader. Using your mouse,
click on it, keep the button pressed and drag it into the work area:
7. Right click on the CSV Reader node, and from the menu select “Configure.” Using the example
below, complete the dialog box as appropriate. Note in this example, we are not using column
or row headers.

8. After selecting OK, click on the green Execute button. You should see the “stop light” turn to
“green”. Once that is done, right click on the node again. This time choose the bottom option
 “File Table” and examine the contents. (If for some reason the results don’t show the expected
data, review the configuration setup.)
9. Notices, there are default column names of “Col 0” and “Col 1.” We will change those before
we resave the file to the CSV standard. To do this, choose the following options from the Node
Repository: Manipulate->Column->Column Rename. Then with your mouse, click on the
triangle of the CSV Reader node from above (that’s the visual to indicate output from the node.)
Drag the mouse then to the Column Rename node input triangle (left side), and you will see a
line drawn. It should remain after you let up on the mouse:

10. Note the yield sign. This is an indicator that you must open up that node’s configuration dialog
box. Use the same set of actions as you did before to open up that node’s dialog box. In this
dialog box, you will see the default names on the left. Double click on each and you will see the
prompt for the new names:
11. After selecting “OK,” execute the node to run, and again, look at the output table created.
12. Now add the following node to your workflow: Views->Line Plot and connect the output of the
Column Rename node to the Line Plot’s input.

13. Then Execute the Line Plot node.

14. Right click on the Line Plot node. Then, look at the View:Line Plot. It shows two lines and the X
axis only refers to row ID’s. The only line we really want to observe is the one that reflects the
number who finished with a time. So, to adjust this go to the next step.
15. Go back to the CSV reader configuration dialog. This time, mark it as having Row Headers (not
column headers). Rerun the workflow, and then observe the Line Plot made.
16. Switch gears from KNime mechanics to considering what the plot reveals. You would expect a
bell curve, but what do you see?