Techniques for Visualizing Data

Question

I'm looking into providing several methods of visualizing a large volume of data. This may include, but will not be limited to, simple graphing. The techniques I'm exploring will involve shapes, text and lines. It will also involve interaction with elements (hiding, focusing, etc.) and animation (shifting, dragging, systematic reorganizing, etc.) of those elements.

SVG or Canvas seem like the obvious choices (in conjunction with a JS library--probably jQuery), but the lack of cross-browser availability is a concern. I'd prefer to avoid Flash/Flex, but right now it's the only rock solid, cross-browser technology I've found if support for IE7/8 is a requirement.

Does anyone have any other suggestions or any additional information that would make a technology I've listed seem even more appealing?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Check out the original Processing.org.

It may seem strange/anachronistic that they are using Java applets, but they were able to get better performance with Java than JavaScript. The applets seem to work everywhere, and you'll have access to lots of great Java libraries.

Answer 2

Don't think I saw this one mentioned: JavaScript InfoViz Toolkit

An interesting visualization I personally like is the treemap view. Nice for summarizing a lot of data in a single view.