Veltman started creating this interactive data visualization by outlining the area teams may claim if fans were decided by proximity. Using Facebook likes, the actual popularity is mapped out for viewers. By hovering over a region, the fan base becomes highlighted according to color. Clicking on the region keeps the space highlighted but can be erased by clicking once more on the interactive data visualization. Veltman admits Facebook likes are not the most accurate way of measuring fans and some counties may have had a close runner up. Yet, it has some interesting results. The NBA, NHL, MLB, and MLS territory maps can be found on this site and are based on the nearest stadium.

Veltman started creating this interactive data visualization by outlining the area teams may claim if fans were decided by proximity. Using Facebook likes, the actual popularity is mapped out for viewers. By hovering over a region, the fan base becomes highlighted according to color. Clicking on the region keeps the space highlighted but can be erased by clicking once more on the interactive data visualization. Veltman admits Facebook likes are not the most accurate way of measuring fans and some counties may have had a close runner up. Yet, it has some interesting results. The NBA, NHL, MLB, and MLS territory maps can be found on this site and are based on the nearest stadium.

Teams with more territory than expected include the Cowboys, Steelers, Packers, Bears, Saints, Dolphins and Giants. Those with less territory include Texans, Panthers, Jaguars, Bills, Rams, Jets, Cardinals, and Chargers.

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.

Tableau states that they are “on a mission to help people see and understand data.” The company offers a variety of software options from on-site to online. They advertise faster analytics of any data amount, ease of use, smart dashboards, sharing, and automatic updating. A free trial is available, too, all of which places it among the best data visualization software.

Domo claims to save users thousands of hours with automated reports and visualization, easy access to 100’s of data sources, and the ability to access data anywhere and on any device. Doma made the best data visualization list for many reasons including its ability to collect data from a variety of sources in real time.

Zoho offers a variety of services including data visualization. With a drop-and-drag interface, Zoho reports being able to create a wide variety of charts, tables, reports and dashboards. The Zoho site says its creations can be embedded anywhere and shared easily. Those interested can take a tour or sign up for free. Zoho also offers help creating forms, survey collection, ad free email, social media analysis, document management and much more, winning it a spot on the best data visualization list.

GoodData goes beyond business intelligence to deliver insight and advanced analytics for organizations. This cloud analytic platform makes the best data visualization list for offering big data ready ETL/ELT, warehousing for data, innovative analysis and visualization and self-service data detection. Always available, the site offers a free trial at sign-up.

Pentaho describes itself as a “leading data integration and business analytics company” capable of taking on data of any size. They are among the best data visualization software for helping companies understand and use their data including big data and Internet of things. Data visualizations are tailor-made to meet the needs of each business.

Ever wonder at what rate you actually earn your paycheck? Time & Money will break it down for you to the second and to the penny. Flowing currency represents the money made per second. The flow may be paused at any time.

The real time data visualization allows you to set the hourly rate, salary, number of people, institution or select from topics such as the U. S. minimum wage, working population, or government budgets.  Clicking on images of bills or coins provides the viewer with a quick history of the currency. Currency starts at a penny and goes up to a $100,000 bill, which the author admits he did not know existed until this project. This real time data visualization was created by Bradford F. Lyon.

Viewers can see the drastic difference in someone making minimum wage verse someone taking home $100,000 a year. Even watching for one minute communicates the difference through this real time data visualization. A minimum wage employee makes 12¢ in one minute whereas the other makes $1.90. Images of real U.S. currency are used and have been approved by the U.S. Mint and Secret Service.

Although the term data visualization often makes one think of colorful charts from Excel or interactive infographics, simpler forms have been around for centuries. Some of the first data visualizations examples would have been done in clay, rock or even sand, dating back thousand of year, according to DataArt . Maps became the main subject for data visualization for many years, using mediums such as papyrus.

In 7 Great Data Visualization Examples from History , Michael Goldberg explains several pre-technology data visualization examples hold a special place in history because the authors had to hand code and design each one. One of those included Dmitri Mendeleev, who developed the Periodic Table. It was significant in that it showed all the elements could be combined into one table by atomic structure instead of separated by atomic weight or common properties.

In 1869, Charles Minard created a graphic showing Napoleon’s campaign and retreat in Russian. The multivariate data presented includes the size of the army, the army’s location, direction of the army’s movement and temperatures on certain dates. Edward Tufte describes it as being possibly the “best statistical graphic ever drawn.”

Mapping deaths from cholera, John Snow was able to visually display that the Broad Street water pump may have been the source of the outbreak in 1854. Although he was not the first to map the epidemic, he was the first to use the underlying scientific theory for cholera’s transmission in this historical data visualization example.

Florence Nightingale used visual illustrations for data she felt could not be “readily grasped when contained in figures” in her campaign for more sanitary conditions and quality care for soldiers. She was able to communicate the great number of soldiers were dying due to conditions rather than their war wounds through this historic data visualization example.

One of the first examples of stereograms is Luigi Perozzo’s Numero Assoluto dei Nati Vivi, which moved into 3D imagery. Several 3D data visualization systems were discovered during the last 1800s. Perrozzo’s diagram illustrates the population of Sweden from 1750 to 1875 and was published around 1880. Further notability came from it being printed in color which enhanced the depth perception. DataArt explains that the diagram shows year horizontally, number of individuals vertically and age groups by depth.

For many, using their first name is impractical because so many share the same first name. Babyname Wizard provides Name Voyager: Baby Name Wizard Graph of Most Popular Baby Names so you can see just how popular certain names are in this datavisualization. Names can be scrolled through with each represented by a line (boys are blue and girls pink) with their thickness representing their popularity. Readers who cannot find their name by hovering over the graph can search for their name specifically and indicate whether they are looking for boys or girls by that name. The datavisualization covers the 1880s until 2014, by decade. Names are listed in the 100,000s per million births.

Hovering over a name in the datavisualization tells the viewer the name as well as its rank at that point in time. Names like “John” show a decline since the 1880s when it was number 1 to number 2 starting in the 1920s. It stayed in the top 10 until 1990s when it moved to number 15. Clicking on the name in the chart takes the reader to a view of only that name. Clicking on the second chart opens a new tab which provides information about the name such as the origin, other name lists featuring the same name, comments from readers, famous people with that name as well as its use in songs, stories and movies.

Data visualization software enables data to be transformed into a graph or other visual aid. These visualizations can vary from graphs to charts to geographical maps. Many are interactive or present real-time data, according to Software Advice . The data visualized allows readers to analyze information, insight and recognize trends all at one, using everyone’s time more efficiently because less time is used interpreting numbers.

Although data visualization software is easy to find, choosing the right one for your personal or business needs can become more complicated. One thing to consider is if you want software on your system or a web-based program. Web-based systems provide an easy of use at any location with internet access but most require a monthly subscription fee. Further, make sure the vendor offers Mobile Business Intelligence (Mobile BI) if you plan to use it on a mobile device. Mobile BI software can provide a lower cost, less IT needs and are faster to implement.

Other concerns, according to Technology Advice , include making sure the software is compatible with your data source. Make sure the data visualization software can create the type of graphic visualization necessary whether it is a graphic, treemap, infographic or three-dimensional scatter plot. In addition, researching the software user-friendliness is important if non-technical users will be operating the software. It should have a clean, easy to understand interface.