Google has been working heavily on the visualization front. After acquiring GapMinder, they released various visualization related tools, such as Google Charts. The latest release has been the Google Visualization API (another announcement of the Google Visualization API).
The amount of charts available is fairly impressive. What I really like is the gapminder-like chart. It supports full interaction and is an amazing tool to see how data evolved over time. To see some more of the chart types, have a look at the visualization gallery.
Why is it important to Security Visualization?
I think what is going to happen is that more and more people will get exposed to the capabilities of interactive visualization. This will definitely drive a demand and hopefully trickle down into the world of security visualization. I am definitely looking forward to some interactive tools that assist me in analyzing my log files. Interaction won't be the be all end all solution. I still think security visualization is missing a significant piece. It's the piece where knowledge is translated. People need help visualizing their data. They need help in choosing the right charts, the right colors, etc. It's not easy, but hopefully my upcoming book on "Applied Security Visualization" is going to somewhat help. What is missing is just a translation of the book into a visualization application!
The announcement of the new Google visualization API went out earlier this week and has generated quite a bit of interested in the general community:
- Opening Google Docs to users and developers via Gadgets and Visualization API
- Google Visualization API from Infosthethics
Google is also updating Google Docs to support the new visualization API. Along with the introduction of pivot tables, is this the end of Excel charting? For a walk-through of Google docs and the visualization feature, have a look at Juan Pablo's blog.