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Data Visualization

DiRT (Digital Research Tools) has a new home! Please visit Bamboo DiRT to explore this excellent collection of research tools.

 

Definition:  

Tools that help users discern patterns in data--dynamic graphs, charts, maps, plots, etc.

 

Tools: 

  • Chartle: Create simple interactive charts. (Web-based, free)
  • ColorBrewer: Interactive tool for selecting most appropriate colors for maps and other visualizations (Web-based, free)
  • Dundas: produces digital dashboard visualizations (Web-based, commercial)
  • Exhibit: "enables you to create html pages with dynamic exhibits of data collections without resorting to complex database and server-side technologies. The collections can be searched and browsed using faceted browsing. Assorted views are provided including Timelines, tiles, maps, and more...If you just want to show a few hundred records of data on maps, timelines, scatter plots, interactive tables, etc., why bother learning SQL, ASP, PHP, CGI, or whatever when you can just use Exhibit?" (Free, web-based)
  • Flare: "Flare is an ActionScript library for creating visualizations that run in the Adobe Flash Player. From basic charts and graphs to complex interactive graphics, the toolkit supports data management, visual encoding, animation, and interaction techniques." See the example visualizations and tutorials.  (Free, open source)
  • GeoCommons: tool for mapping data: "Create interactive maps from thousands of publicly sourced datasets. Add your own in minutes." (Free, web-based)
  • Gephi: "an interactive visualization and exploration platform for all kinds of networks and complex systems, dynamic and hierarchical graphs." (Open-source, cross-platform.) See review at information aesthetics.
  • GGobi: "an open source visualization program for exploring high-dimensional data. It provides highly dynamic and interactive graphics such as tours, as well as familiar graphics such as the scatterplot, barchart and parallel coordinates plots. Plots are interactive and linked with brushing and identification." (Open-source, cross-platform)
  • Google Spreadsheets gadgets: Supports creation of heat maps, "pie charts, column charts, bar charts, area charts, image lines, scatter charts, organizational charts, time series" (Free, web-based)
  • Google Chart API: API to create simple charts and graphs, "intended for programmers who want to include Google Chart API images within a webpage. It provides an introduction to using the API and reference material on the available parameters" (Free, web-based)

  • Graphviz: an open source graph visualization software. Graph visualization is a way of representing structural information as diagrams of abstract graphs and networks.
  • Hohli: "Online Charts Builder"

  • ICTA: "system for Automated Text Analysis and Discovery of Social Networks from text. It was originally designed to work with email-based and forum-based data. But it can also be used to analyze other types of electronic communication such as blogs and chats" (Free, web-based)
  • Leximancer: makes automatic concept maps of text data collections (Commercial, cross-platform)
  • Many Eyes: a collaborative visualization toolset--using your own data or data already available in ManyEyes, you can visualize your data using 1 of 16 different types of visualizations. Share your visualizations or comment on others'.  (Free, web-based)
  • NewRadial: customizable tool for visualizing humanities data.  Developed by Jon Saklofske, originally for use with the Blake Archive. (Open source, cross platform)
  • NodeXL: an Excel 2007 add-in that adds social network analysis features to a spreadsheet (Free, open source)
  • OpenHeatMap: Offers easy way to map data: upload CSV file and get an interactive map (Free, open source; via ReadWriteWeb)
  • Photosynth: takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space (Free, web-based)
  • prefuse:  " a set of software tools for creating rich interactive data visualizations... Prefuse supports a rich set of features for data modeling, visualization, and interaction. It provides optimized data structures for tables, graphs, and trees, a host of layout and visual encoding techniques, and support for animation, dynamic queries, integrated search, and database connectivity. Prefuse is written in Java, using the Java 2D graphics library" (Open source)
  • Roambi Lite:  Visualize data from Excel spreadsheets on your iPhone; visualizations include pie charts, bar graphs & flip charts. (Free, iPhone)
  • SEASR: provides tools & frameworks for sharing data and research (including data visualization) in virtual work environments (Free; open source, Windows/Mac/Linux)
  • SIMILE Project: collection of tools to access, manage, visualize and reuse digital assets (includes Timeline and Exhibit) (Free, open source)
  • Swivel: "Swivel's mission is to make data useful: Explore and compare data, graphs and maps; Share insights via email, blog or data downloads; Upload the data you care about." (Free, web-based)(It seems that is not anymore available)
  • TagCrowd: "a web application for visualizing word frequencies in any user-supplied text by creating what is popularly known as a tag cloud or text cloud...Create your own tag cloud from any text to visualize word frequency." (Free, web-based)
  • Tableau: software that allows you to visualize, analyze and share data (Commercial, Windows)
  • Telerik Reporting: "lightweight .NET reporting solution" (Commercial)
  • Timeline Builder: "allows you to easily create and manage online timelines. You do not need to know how to build a Web page, set up a database to store entries, or do any of the other technical tasks that are normally required to produce interactivity on the Internet." (Free, web-based)
  • TimeSearcher 1 & 2: Visualize and query time series data (Free for academic uses, Windows)
  • Timetric: Web-based visualization tool for time-series analysis (Free, web-based)
  • Track-n-Graph: "service for friends, family, and co-workers to track and graph information" (Free, web-based)
  • Transana: "Software for the transcription and qualitative analysis of video and audio data";  this program offers ways of viewing coding across both single and (Commercial; open source, Windows/Mac)
  • XTimeline: web-based timeline tool (Free, web-based)
  • Wordle: a tool for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. This is a handy tool for text analysis. (Free, web-based)

 

Resources:

 

See also:

 

Comments (3)

Carlos said

at 10:07 am on Jun 20, 2008

is transana actually a visualisation software in the sense implied by this section?

zeerored said

at 6:47 am on Sep 10, 2009

Look at InfiView as well:-)

InfiView is an AJAX Framework built in Bindows and compatible to all the most commond browsers. For data handling it uses dynamic memory technology, that enables the use of ANY data size (from very small all the way to infinite—see here for more information about the ∞).

Please check out the video http://bit.ly/rC61O

Lucy Barber said

at 12:58 pm on Feb 3, 2010

Can anyone recommend the best tool for doing timelines for someone with limited html experience and who wants to present it on a personal webspace (either blogger or Microsoft Live or something like that)? I tried Timeline Builder but it did not work as easily as I expected.

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