From Open Knowledge Foundation

Open Visualisation

Visual representation is a time-tested way of making large, complex bodies of information manageable – whether in the form of maps, timelines, graphs, or charts. Emerging digital technologies have revolutionised what is possible in this domain.

These pages are to document open-source software for visualisation and existing (open) knowledge visualisation projects.

See also:

• open-visualisation mailing list
• Open Visualisation Workshop
• Software Tools

Software

Other listings:

• http://the.taoofmac.com/space/infoviz
• http://datavisualization.ch/tools/13-javascript-libraries-for-visualizations

Field meanings:

• Ratings go from 1-5
• Active goes from 1-3 (1 = inactive, 3 = very active)

Hosted

Software	License	Active	Rating
Google Fusion Tables	Free to use (but not open)	Y	4
ManyEyes	Free to use (but not open)	Y	4
Wordle	?	?	4
NumberPicture	Free to use	Y	4

Javascript

Software	License	Active	Rating
JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit	BSD	3	4
processingjs	?	2	3
jsviz	?	?	?
js-treemap	?	1	?
protovis	BSD	2/3 (v3.1)	5
Raphaël	MIT	3	?
Flot	BSD	3 (v0.6)	4
jQuery SVG	GPL, MIT	?	?
Dojo Toolkit	BSD, AFL	2/3	?

Flash

Software	License	Active	Rating
Degrafa	?
Flare	?	3	4
Prefuse	?	2	?

Python

Software	License	Active	Rating
matplotlib	BSD	3	5
Orange	GPL	?	?

Java

• Mondrian (GPL)
• jreality
• JFreechart (GPL)
• Processing
• Gephi (GPL 3) "Gephi is an interactive visualization and exploration platform for all kinds of networks and complex systems, dynamic and hierarchical graphs."

R

• ggplot2

Other

• ruby-processing - ruby implementation
• GraphViz -- fast network visualization (C)
• networkx: python network visualization based on matplotlib (can also use graphviz)
• VTK - high performance esp. 3-d visualization (bindings to python, java etc)

Other (Not Much Known about

• Mindraider
• Graph Gear
• Ggobi
• Nodebox
• Clutter
• TouchGraph (undergoing changes, and currently being split into proprietary and open-source components)
• Drishti - visualization of 3D volume data
• BoB - "Brick of Bytes" visualization of 3D volume data
• OpenDX
• igraph - under GPL
• ParaView - open source data visualisation application.
• GD
• xgobi

Domain Specific

Bioinformatics

• Artemis
• CIRCOS
• synteView (GPL)
• lookseq - developed by Magnus Manske at Sanger Institute, available under GPL
• xmatchview - developed by Canada's Michael Smith Genome Science Centre, licensed under GPL
• sam - license not clear
• Cytoscape - "bioinformatics software platform for visualizing molecular interaction networks and integrating these interactions with gene expression profiles and other state data", under LGPL.

Cave and caving

• Therion
• Survex

Diagram

• DIA

Maps

• Cartographer.js Thematic Maps for Google Maps
• Open Layers Free Maps for the Web
• TileMill Open source map design studio

Satellite

• Savi

Projects

• Swivel
• Gapminder
• ManyEyes
• Open Processing
• Add-A-Tag

Blogs and references

todo: aggregate feeds

• Infosthetics
• Datavisualization.ch
• Open Source Graph or Network Visualisation - listing of packages
• Visual Complexity
• WikiViz
• Chris Harrison's Visualization page
• From Tom Carden's blog:
  • http://infosthetics.com/
  • http://flowingdata.com/
  • http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/
  • http://benfry.com/writing/
  • http://www.formfollowsbehavior.com/
  • http://dd.dynamicdiagrams.com/
  • http://blog.many-eyes.com/
  • http://datamining.typepad.com/data_mining/
  • http://simplecomplexity.net/
  • http://leebyron.com/how/
  • http://eagereyes.org/
  • http://accuracyandaesthetics.com/
  • http://www.juiceanalytics.com/writing/
  • http://diuf.unifr.ch/people/bertinie/visuale/
  • http://well-formed-data.net/
  • http://www.numberpix.com/
  • http://www.mentegrafica.it/blog/
  • http://junkcharts.typepad.com/junk_charts/
  • http://informationandvisualization.de/
  • http://designnotes.info/
  • http://perceptualedge.com/blog/
  • http://shiffman.net/
  • http://abeautifulwww.com/
  • http://makingmaps.wordpress.com/

Articles and Books

• The original graphical guru: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi and http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_ei
• Websites as Graphs
• http://www.tacticaltech.org/infodesign Visualizing Information for Advocacy: An Introduction to Information Design, by Tactical Tech