Thursday, February 16, 2012

Java InfoVis Toolkit

JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit
Create Interactive Data Visualizations for the Web
Purpose:
InfoVis is probably among the best known JavaScript visualization libraries. It is used in publishing interactive data visualizations on the Web. The White House agrees: InfoVis was used to create the Obama administration's Interactive Budget graphic.
What sets this tool apart from many others is the highly polished graphics it creates from just basic code samples. InfoVis creator Nicolas GarcĂ­a Belmonte, senior software architect at Sencha Inc., clearly cares as much about aesthetic design as he does about the code, and it shows.
Merits:
There's no extra coding involved to get graphical effects as there are already existing templates available. To minimize the weight of web pages we can download the code for the specific visualization only. This is a very useful feature of InfoVis.
Demerits:
As it is not an application but a code library, coding expertise is required in order to use it. Therefore, this might not be a suitable for users in an organization who analyse data but don't know how to program. Also, the choice of visualization types is somewhat limited. Moreover, the data should be in JSON format.
Features:
In InfoVis Toolkit there are different styles of visualization available to present the data as per the requirement of the users. These styles can be categorized in following ways:
1. Area, bar and pie charts: Stacked AreaChart, Stacked AreaChart, Vertical Stacked BarChart,     Horizontal Stacked BarChart, Stacked PieChart
2. Sunburst: File System Visualization, Custom Nodes and Edges
3. Icicle: Static Icicle Animation, File System Visualization
4. Force Directed: Graph Manipulation, Graph Manipulation and Editing
5. Tree map: Squarified Animated Treemap, On-Demand Nodes, Cushion Treemap
6. Space tree: Tree Animation, On-Demand Nodes, Add/Remove Subtrees, Custom Style Animations
7. Rgraph: Tree Animation, Weighted Graph Animation, Graph Operations, Drag and Drop Nodes
8. HyperTree: Tree Animation, Weighted Graph Animation, Graph Operations
Final presentation:
It will include
1. Theoretical introduction to the JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit
2. Features
3. In-built Functions
4. Hands on example showing the working of the tool using one of the template
5. Projecting the results for Business Uses


Business Value
It can be used to present the complex business data with its implications in an easier and effective manner by using the user friendly dynamic interface. With its brilliant presentation it can analyse the unorganized data which would present the business insights.