Cytoscape: An Open Source Platform for Complex-Network Analysis and Visualization. Gephi, an open source graph visualization and manipulation software. Processing.org. Your Random Numbers – Getting Started with Processing and Data Visualization.
Over the last year or so, I’ve spent almost as much time thinking about how to teach data visualization as I’ve spent working with data. I’ve been a teacher for 10 years – for better or for worse this means that as I learn new techniques and concepts, I’m usually thinking about pedagogy at the same time. Lately, I’ve also become convinced that this massive ‘open data’ movement that we are currently in the midst of is sorely lacking in educational components.
The amount of available data, I think, is quickly outpacing our ability to use it in useful and novel ways. How can basic data visualization techniques be taught in an easy, engaging manner? This post, then, is a first sketch of what a lesson plan for teaching Processing and data visualization might look like. I’m going to start from scratch, work through some examples, and (hopefully) make some interesting stuff. Let’s Start With the Data We’re not going to work with an old, dusty data set here. Got it? Now we see the two compared: Examples. Enjoy these sample visualizations built with Protovis. For any example, use your browser to view the source or the backing dataset. Protovis is no longer under active development.The final release of Protovis was v3.3.1 (4.7 MB). The Protovis team is now developing a new visualization library, D3.js, with improved support for animation and interaction.
D3 builds on many of the concepts in Protovis; for more details, please read the introduction and browse the examples. Conventional While Protovis is designed for custom visualization, it is still easy to create many standard chart types. These simpler examples serve as an introduction to the language, demonstrating key abstractions such as quantitative and ordinal scales, while hinting at more advanced features, including stack layout. Area Charts Bar & Column Charts Scatterplots Pie & Donut Charts Line & Step Charts Stacked Charts Grouped Charts Custom Anderson’s Flowers Becker’s Barley Bertin’s Hotel Streamgraphs Sparklines Bullet Charts Bubble Charts.