Computerworld takes a look at some of the tools presented at last month’s Computer-Assisted Reporting conference and picks their top 22 free tools for visualization & analysis. Many of them we’ve reported on before (like DataWrangler, Google Fusion, and Many Eyes).
There are many tools around to help turn data into graphics, but they can carry hefty price tags. The cost can make sense for professionals whose primary job is to find meaning in mountains of information, but you might not be able to justify such an expense if you or your users only need a graphics application from time to time, or if your budget for new tools is somewhat limited. If one of the higher-priced options is out of your reach, there are a surprising number of highly robust tools for data visualization and analysis that are available at no charge.
It’s a good list, but missing some rather important additions like ParaView & VisIt IMO.
via 22 free tools for data visualization and analysis – Computerworld.
The piece was aimed a bit more at business users than scientists, but you bring up a good point about omissions. I’ve addressed that in a follow-up blog post: http://blogs.computerworld.com/18212/8_more_free_tools_for_data_visualization_and_analysis