Weave Your Way to Some Awesome Visualizations. Whenever I write about data visualization or infographics, I always receive a few comments asking for suggestions of good visualization tools.
We all know that finding good tools isn’t always easy. The trouble I find with data visualization tools in particular is that most have long been only available to the tech savvy. However, two Boston-area organizations are setting out to change that with Weave. Developed by the Institute for Visualization and Perception Research of the University of Massachusetts Lowell and by the Open Indicators Consortium, Weave brings forth a powerful and easy-to-use, free tool “for anyone interested in a topic to explore and [wants] to analyze information about it, instead of leaving the task solely to computer and data specialists”.
Open-source Weave liberates data for journalists, citizens. Data nerds from government and academia gathered Friday at Northeastern University to show off the latest version of Weave, an open-source, web-based platform designed to visualize “any available data by anyone for any purpose.”
The software has a lot of potential for journalists. Weave is supported by the Open Indicators Consortium, an unusual partnership of planning agencies and universities who wanted better tools to inform public policy and community decision-making. The groups organized and agreed to share data and code in 2008, well before Gov 2.0 was hot. Weave (Web-based Analysis and Visualization Environment) Weave - Home - UMass Lowell IVPR Issue Tracker.