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GrandPerspective-style treemaps for the web and disk usage visualizer

by thad_imbue·Apr 29, 2026·5 points·0 comments

AI Analysis

●●●BangerEye CandyWizardryNiche Gem

GrandPerspective-style treemaps running in the browser with millions of nodes.

Strengths
  • Canvas-based rendering handles millions of nodes without the DOM overhead of SVG alternatives.
  • Faithfully recreates the dense, colorful aesthetic of the classic GrandPerspective desktop app.
  • Drop-in CLI for disk usage visualization works immediately via npx with zero config.
Weaknesses
  • Niche visualization style may not fit standard business dashboard requirements.
  • Web-based disk visualizers compete with established native tools like DaisyDisk.
Target Audience

Frontend developers and data visualization engineers

Similar To

GrandPerspective · DaisyDisk · WinDirStat

Post Description

I like treemaps for visualizing hierarchical mass and density of resource usage. I've always particularly loved GrandPerspective's dense, colorful rendering, but haven't found a similar but generalized treemap that works in reactive web views across many data visualization contexts.

So I built gp-treemap, a canvas-based web component that renders GP-style treemaps with millions of nodes: https://github.com/imbue-ai/gp-treemap/

If you want to give it a spin, try something like this command to visualize hierarchical disk usage:

npx -p @imbue-ai/gp-treemap gpdu ~/Downloads

Fun fact: I built gp-treemap as a test case for Imbue's Sculptor (https://imbue.com/sculptor/) and Blueprint (https://imbue.com/product/blueprint) tools.

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