Open source means that software has been made available for modification and use with no charge. Opensource.com published 8 excellent open source data visualization tools in June. The first one mentioned is Datawrapper where you can create charts and maps in just four steps. It can be downloaded or cloud hosted (paid service). It’s a web based graphics user interface(GUI).

The next open source data visualization tool is Chart.js . It provides technical and precise control over the charts but is not user friendly for those not wanting to mess with code. It is HTML5 based and boasts six chart types including interactive. Similarly named, Charted , is a minimal charting tool. The user provides a link to the data and a chart is not only produced, but updated every 30 minutes. No data is stored by this online tool. D3 (data driven documents), a JavaScript library, uses HTML, SVG, and CSS. The user may need to write code and it may not be for everyone. The fifth open source data visualization tool listed by Opensource is Dygraphs . It is also a JavaScript library that can process big data and produces interactive charts. Although it may require some code writing, it is described as easier to use than open source data visualization tools.

Additionally, Raw is a D3.js library that is web based. It is user friendly, requiring users only to paste their data. This tool allows customization and can be exported as SVG or PNG formats. Timeline is available in 40 languages for building, well, timelines. The timelines work on any site or blog and can be interactive. Finally, Leaflet is another JavaScript library for creating interactive maps that are mobile-friendly. Leaflet works with most programs and can be extended with plugins. It also takes advantage of HTML5 and CSS3.

Although most people know Broadway is the place to see the best live performances in the country, the majority may have never seen the actual street. Yet, the 13 miles of Broadway are now visible through the assembling of images and data from social network sites in a project entitled On Broadway . The project was created by Daniel Goodemeyer, Moritz Stefaner, Dominikus Baur, and Lev Manovich.

The project was inspired by the book, Every Building on the Sunset Strip , which unfolds to 25 feet wide, exposing photographs of both sides of a 1.5 mile section of the Sunset Strip.  Data for On Broadway was collected for a spine-like shape created from 30 meter intervals that were 100 meters wide.

The data visualisation project took data from 660,000 Instagram photos from 158 days in 2014, Twitter posts with photos, Foursquare check-ins beginning in 2009, taxi destinations and pick ups in 2013, Google street views and economic information from the U. S. Census Bureau’s 2013 data. The data was not transformed into a map or chart but a “vertical stack of image and data layers.” The layers include (top to bottom) landmarks and anecdotes, Google Street view, façade colors, taxi statistics, Google Street view from above, social media statistics, income information, colors from Instagram pics, and a listing of the neighborhoods.

The data visualisation showed correlations across the field for certain areas, highlighting some tourist landmarks along the street. The New York Public Library’s Public Eye exhibition has the data visualisation on display until January 3, 2016 or the application can be opened online .

When talking about making a data visualization, many people picture someone at a computer working with data, graphics, and charts. Yet, the actual creation can contain a lot more work. For Óscar Corvera , an Infographic Artist for La Prensa Gráfica , his approach is journalistic and described in the Life of a Graphic . When an early morning shooting left several dead in San Salvador, El Salvador, Corvera went to the site to interview witnesses and police officers as well as sketch the scene.

He records everything including the location of other cars and trees. He then laid the crime out, step by step, and coordinated it with the version from the article. After the initial data visualization, Corvera continued his research, gaining access to the car where the people were shot. He counted bullet holes and locations, also including the positions of occupants. The resulting data visualization led his editors to assign a reporter to do a follow-up article. The second graphic received an Award of Excellence from the Society of News Design.

The Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards selects the best data visualisations, infographics, and information art. Created in 2012 by David McCandless and Aziz Cami, the Awards were created to celebrate the beauty and excellence of visualizing data. The organization also hosts mini-challenges throughout the year to “keep your dataviz juices flowing.” They are community-driven, do not require a large entry fee and provides a free award party sponsored by Kantar . Readers can sort through the winners of the past three year by the different levels and categories.

Using token analysis, he compared the first 35,000 words of lyrics of rappers to the first 35,000 written by Shakespeare and Herman Melville. Shakespeare, he explains, used 28,829 words in his writings and estimates he knew over 100,000. On top of the 85 artists is Aesop Rock with 7,392 unique words. The bottom is DMX with 3,214. The Awards second place or Silver as the site calls it, was Timm Kekeritz’s Weather Radials , which breaks down the weather for 35 cities worldwide. The Bronze was taken by The Depth of the Problem by The Washington Post , illustrating the challenge of searchers looking for wreckage of Flight 370. With over 100 entries for 2014, the Awards are sure to continue celebrating the best data visualisation available.