Visualizing objects, simulating animations,... on web platform require the "pro" ability, and usally built on paltforms that have powerful graphical engine such as Flash, Java applet and not long ago is Silverlight. However, with the movement of technology, along with strong assitance from the browsers, JavaScript language has also joined this "deluxe field" with many specialized libraries.

This article is just for summarizing features and characteristics of some popular visualization libraries, and provide to web developers one more choice for their projects.

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As data visualization often needs to reach a broad audience the browser is becoming the number one tool to publish and share visualizations. A lot of visualizations require user-interaction to unleash their full potential, thus interactive applets that run directly in the browser are a a great way to analyze the data at hand. Beside the usual suspects like Flash, Silverlight and Processing, JavaScript is quickly gaining ground in the field of interactive visualization embedded in websites. We've collected 13 JavaScript visualization libraries that help you get started faster, keep it flexible and develop with higher reliability.

Processing.js

Processing.js is an open programming language for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions for the web without using Flash or Java applets. Processing.js uses Javascript to draw shapes and manipulate images on the HTML5 Canvas element. The code is light-weight, simple to learn and makes an ideal tool for visualizing data, creating user-interfaces and developing web-based games.

Runs in

Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, IE

Uses

Canvas tag / IE Canvas tag

Link

http://processingjs.org/

Raphaël

Raphaël is a small JavaScript library that should simplify your work with vector graphics on the web. If you want to create your own specific chart or image crop and rotate widget, for example, you can achieve it simply and easily with this library.
Raphaël uses the SVG W3C Recommendation and VML as a base for creating graphics. This means every graphical object you create is also a DOM object, so you can attach JavaScript event handlers or modify them later.

Runs in

Firefox 3.0+, Safari 3.0+, Opera 9.5+ and Internet Explorer 6.0+

Uses

SVG, VML

Link

http://raphaeljs.com

JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit

The JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit is a complete set of tools to create Interactive Data Visualizations for the Web. It includes JSON loading, animation, 2D point and graph classes and some predefined tree visualization methods.

Runs in

IE6+, Firefox2+, Safari3+, Opera9.5+

Uses

Canvas tag

Link

http://thejit.org/

Protovis

Protovis is a visualization toolkit for JavaScript using SVG. It takes a graphical approach to data visualization, composing custom views of data with simple graphical primitives like bars and dots. These primitives are called marks, and each mark encodes data visually through dynamic properties such as color and position.

Runs in

Firefox 3, Chrome and Safari 4

Uses

SVG

Link

http://vis.stanford.edu/protovis/

jQuery Sparklines

jQuery Sparklines is a jQuery plugin that generates sparklines (small inline charts) directly in the browser using data supplied either inline in the HTML, or via javascript.

Runs in

Firefox 2+, Safari 3+, Opera 9 and Internet Explorer 6, 7 & 8

Uses

Canvas tag

Link

http://omnipotent.net/jquery.sparkline/

Primer

Primer is a tiny JavaScript library that simplifies the workflow of creating graphics right in the HTML using the object. Simply create a Primer() object in a DIV of your choice and then you're ready to start drawing.

Runs in

Firefox 2+, Safari 3+, Opera 9

Uses

Canvas tag

Link

http://github.com/mojombo/primer/tree/master

Flot

Flot is a pure Javascript plotting library for jQuery. It produces graphical plots of arbitrary datasets on-the-fly client-side.
The focus is on simple usage (all settings are optional), attractive looks and interactive features like zooming and mouse tracking.

Runs in

Firefox 2.x+, Safari 3.0+, Opera 9.5+, Konqueror 4.x+, IE 6/7/8

Uses

Canvas tag

Link

http://code.google.com/p/flot/

jQuery Google Charts

jQuery Google Charts is a jQuery Plugin for producing visualizations using the Google Charts API.

Runs in

Image- and JS-ready browsers

Uses

Image tag

Link

http://www.maxb.net/scripts/jgcharts/

jQ Chart

jQ Chart is another jQuery Plugin for creating canvas based visualizations. Unfortunately the documentation is only partly written in english languge.

Uses

Canvas tag

Link

http://jsgt.org/lib/jquery/plugin/jqchart/

TufteGraph

TufteGraph is a jQuery Plugin that lets you create graphs. There are no predefined layout structures - everything is set via Cascading Style Sheets.

Tested in

Firefox 3 and Safari 3

Uses

SVG & CSS

Link

http://xaviershay.github.com/tufte-graph/

jqPlot

jqPlot is a plotting and charting plugin for the jQuery Javascript framework. jqPlot produces beautiful line, bar and pie charts with many features: Numerous chart style options, Date axes with customizable formatting, Up to 9 Y axes, Rotated axis text, Automatic trend line computation, Tooltips and data point highlighting, Sensible defaults for ease of use.

Runs in

IE 6, IE 7, IE 8, Firefox, Safari, and Opera

Uses

Canvas tag

Link

http://www.jqplot.com/

jQuery Visualize

Visualize provides a simple method for generating bar, line, area, and pie charts from an HTML table, and allows you to configure them in a variety of ways.

Runs in

Firefox, Safari, and Opera

Uses

Canvas tag

Link

http://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/

MooWheel

The purpose of the moowheel script is to provide a unique and elegant way to visualize data using Javascript and the object. This type of visualization can be used to display connections between many different objects, be them people, places, things, or otherwise.

Runs in

Firefox, Safari, and Opera

Uses

Canvas tag / IE canvas tag

Link

http://www.unwieldy.net/projects/moowheel/

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