I am going to start updating a post that I wrote for my old blog almost 2 years ago. However, I still think is relevant today.
A more and more common word /concept out there is BIG DATA. I was listening today to a techcrunch video about the book Big data: A revolution that Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think and I decided to write this post. Big data is out there, but what we really need are tools to visualize, analyze and find hidden patterns.
I found this post really interesting, summarizing key visualization tools. However, there are some more out there than I think are useful too.
Plot.ly: it is a great concept to publish your work easily and make your plots interactive. It hooks up to MATLAB, Python or R and automatically generates a .js version of the plot, so you can share it on the web. I have not used it, but
cartoDB: great resource if you want to visualize data on a map.
Enigma: collects publicly available datasets and allows you to merge, select and play with them. You have to pay…
Quandl: similar idea as Engima but is open source. It has plotting and basic computational capabilities to play with the data.
Google Charts, Public Data and Maps Engine: Google has visualization tools available for free, that can be embedded into your website. However, in some cases you need programming skills to upload the data. Plots are interactive and easy to play with. The easiest tool is the new Google Maps Engine.
Wolfram Alpha: sort of search engine with computational, visualization and data analytics tools available. Can solve PDE, ODE and plot nice 3D plots.
ManyEyes: is a research project from IBM. Is the most complete and accessible tool one can play with without any prior knowledge. Anyone can upload their data set and select different visualization options. It also allows for different types of text analytics.
Statpedia: is the the collaborative search engine for statistics. In short, is like a Wikipedia, but for graphical content. One can create, search and share graphics easily. If generated through Statpedia creator, graphics are interactive and are displayed beautifully in search display boxes.