Comments on: Poster design - programs/resources for data driven visualizations?

Question: Poster design - programs/resources for data driven visualizations?

figTree — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:52:13 -0800

professional looking data driven visualizations - resources/experience using different programs?

I am looking into how to make vector based posters that show complex data, and need the graphics to be data driven. So far I have found 2 packages for this type of thing.

Processing this is essentially java stripped down to its graphical functions, it can do interactive/animated things too.

NodeBox is a python approach, but is officially only avaiable for mac. I found
this which is a windows version, but i would rather use something supported.

I haven't looked enough into either of these to know what the workflow would be for making something like this or like this . I don't know if its 100% coding or mostly coding, or if you can actually manually edit stuff around as well like in illustrator?

I am looking into maybe some other package that i have overlooked, and am also looking into how i can use illustrator to do data driven graphics type stuff. I have not been able to find much good information/tutorials on data driven illustrator. However, if it is quite limited on the scripting end, then i don't know if it would be the best way to go.

Just basically wanted to see if i can get any good advice in this area before i devote too much time to something that i will eventually drop for something else... I like the idea of using python, but would rather have something that is natively windows, and illustrator seems like it might not cut it, and i really don't feel much like learning java, even though it seem to me that processing is the leader in this area?

By: pedantic

pedantic — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:00:00 -0800

If you know JavaScript, the prolific genius John Resig ported Processing to processing.js. Run in browser's kiosk mode and profit.

By: pedantic

pedantic — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:08:43 -0800

p.s. Processing and its derivatives are coding; processing.js produces elements in the canvas world, which are vector.

Gore's An Inconvenient Truth was Keynote based, but the slides were designed individually by Duarte Design (read the deconstruction).

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:12:30 -0800

ParaView
MayaVi

By: null terminated

null terminated — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:12:40 -0800

NetworkX?

By: pedantic

pedantic — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:21:03 -0800

Prefuse. Holy crap.

Because of your question, I lost hours, but will gain something incredible.

By: signal

signal — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:03:13 -0800

Visualizing Data is by Ben Fry, one of the authors of Processing, and is a sort Processing tutorial mixed with an introduction to information visualization. Halfway through it myself, it's quite good.

By: signal

signal — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:24:43 -0800

Played a bit with the windows NodeBox, and it seems quite powerful and stable. I'd probably use it over Processing, just for Python (ok, Jython) over Java-lite.

By: signal

signal — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:26:07 -0800

One last thing before I shut up: PIL, the Python Imaging Library. Very powerful and easy to use.

By: PueExMachina

PueExMachina — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:55:28 -0800

Graphviz?

By: thisjax

thisjax — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:49:31 -0800

The igraph extension for Python produces some pretty nice stuff.

By: zpousman

zpousman — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:22:22 -0800

ManyEyes can make nice visualizations. But there's not a way to export them as PDFs or in other vector formats. They are interactive though (and Java based, so ...)