4 Useful JavaScript Libraries for Data Analysis and Visualization

Businesses from all around the globe, irrespective of the industry vertical, have realized the importance of data-driven decision making. Data Analytics is currently one of the most trendy topics in the world and businesses across different verticals are increasingly focusing on deriving meaningful insights from data in order to understand both past and future trends.

There are several data-centric programming languages that can be used to process raw business data. Among the popular choices, JavaScript ranks high among the developers due to its proven capabilities and easy learning curve. Some of the biggest brands in the world are utilizing this programming language for the purpose of web-based data analysis. Look no further than Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and you will find that Java-based frameworks are the foundational languages for their data engineering infrastructure.

In this article, we will bring you a handpicked list of 4 useful JavaScript libraries that can be extremely useful for data analysis and visualization.

1. Data-Driven-Documents (D3.js)

Talking about JavaScript-based data analysis without mentioning Data-Driven-Documents (D3) is like discussing operating systems with no mention of Microsoft.

Data-Driven-Documents, popularly known as D3.js, is a JavaScript library for manipulating data using DOM objects. It has the capability to bind arbitrary data to a Document Object Model (DOM), and transform them into meaningful information using HTML, SVG, and CSS rendering.

D3's emphasis on web standards gives extraordinary flexibility to carry out web-based data analysis and visualization, utilizing the full capability of modern browsers without tying yourself to a proprietary framework. It seamlessly integrates data-driven approach to DOM manipulation with powerful visualization features.

What Makes It Stand Apart?

Powerful data visualization is the most striking feature of D3. It is not a monolithic framework that supports a fixed set of ready-to-use charts and graphs. In fact, it doesn’t tie you to a strict framework, thus allowing you the freedom to implement creative, complex, and interactive visualization elements from scratch on an HTML canvas. It can handle multiple input data formats including XML, CSV, and JSON.

2. Aperture JS

Aperture JS is a powerful, agile, and extensible JavaScript library intended for creating scalable visualizations for the purpose of data analysis. It brings a unique and unified layer-based approach to visualization. It is pretty light-weight, but at the same time loaded with several great features.

Aperture's robust API provides adaptability to any type of data source. Visual mapping makes it easy to transform raw data into interactive visual forms with minimal effort. The output can be rendered in an SVG format where it is supported by the web browser. Besides being compatible with all modern-day browsing programs, it even supports older versions of Internet Explorer (IE 7/8) through VML rendering.

What Makes it Stand Apart?

Aperture vizlets (visualization forms) are mobile browser friendly in nature and can be easily embedded in web-based client frameworks. With the ability to re-scale based on the width of the device, it offers a fully responsive user experience.

3. InfoVis

JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit, more commonly referred to as InfoVis, is one of the leading JavaScript libraries for creating interactive data visualizations. It's a DOM-based manipulation library that supports a rich set of chart/graph types and also includes some cool animation effects into the mix. It supports JSON-based data source for loading and displays the output on an HTML canvas element.

What Makes it Stand Apart?

The most impressive feature of InfoVis is its extensive collection of visualization types - beyond the standard options like a bar chart, area chart, and pie chart. Most importantly, you need not possess advanced scripting knowledge or JavaScript certification to process and transform data using InfoVis. With its pre-integrated visualization elements, you can implement many advanced features of information visualization, such as TreeMaps, HyperTree, RGraph, ForceRedirect, and Sunburst, without writing a single line of code.

4. Cytoscape.js

Do you need to model relational data and transform them into interactive graphical representations effortlessly? If yes, Cytoscope.js is just what you need. Whether you are a newbie or a certified JavaScript professional, you will find it extremely easy to generate interactive visualizations with the help of this amazing scripting library.

Cytoscape is a powerful JavaScript library widely used for the purpose of graphical data analysis and visualization. It's a light-weight library written in pure JavaScript, which allows you to display and manipulate data in rich graphical formats. Available under permissive open-source license (MIT), the library contains many useful functions with relevance to graph theory algorithms - right from BFS to PageRank.

What Makes it Stand Apart?

Apart from rendering interactive graphs from relational data, Cytoscape can easily be implemented on Node.js to carry out server-side data analysis as well - thus making it a complete package for both data analysis and visualization.

Over to You

There are quite a lot of useful JavaScript libraries for dealing with data - we have just covered a few of them. Becoming familiar with the libraries discussed above could be helpful to your career if you are interested in pursuing a career in data analysis and visualization.