IMPURE, a graphical framework for data visualization

I discovered very lately this powerful graphical programming framework.
Its main purpose is data visualization.

As Ben Fry defined the data visualization field of knowledge, in order to achieve a whole project of data viz (the short name often used), you have to process 7 tasks:
- acquire
- parse
- filter
- mine
- represent
- filter
- interact

The last step can be put on the side, as some authors made, but I consider it to be a real & strong step in this big process because it provides the human/machine interface necessary & sufficient to people to manipulate/change/alter the filter (often) and makes them better understanding the purpose.

There are a lot of librairies to achieve that on the web.
By using Proce55ing, you can “easily” grabbing data, processing them & visualize them too.

Processing provides a core .jar (BIG java library) but a light IDE too.
You can download it and test it for free here: http://processing.org/download
A bunch of examples are available and there is a strong community too.

In the case of Processing, you have to code using a JAVA overset of the official library.
A lot of functions visualization-oriented are coded especially for you but… in the end you have to type lines of code!

If you don’t want to dive into a code language but if you want to make strong data viz, just make a try withIMPURE
Please, just do it now !

Bestiaro (the startup behind it) defines it like that:

Impure is a visual programming language aimed to gather, process and visualize information. With impure is possible to obtain information from very different sources; from user owned data to diverse feeds in internet, including social media data, real time or historical financial information, images, news, search queries and many more. Impure is a tool to be in touch with data around internet, to deeply understand it. Within a modular logic interface you can quickly link information to operators, controls and visualization methods, bringing all the power of the comprehension of information and knowledge to the not programmers that want to work with information in a professional way.

Those folks are clear & precise, they just invite us & provides us a strongly art/design oriented framework to build from light to complex data visualizations!

Basically, it is all about boxes & patch cords.
You probably know Max5, another graphical programming framework with a less precise purpose, but with a so powerful & strong implementation… It is “a bit” like that.

You connect some objects between them and those objects make their job!
The framework is actually supported only for your browser (that is the fate of all applications & software one day or the other).
But it just proves that our browsers are strong frameworks to parse JS & HTML5 & Flash scripts & binaries!
We already knew that, but it is another reminder

The result, at the end of this tree of patched objects, are pretty nice visualization which can help you to analyse data, or to represent them for a public who don’t care about abstract arrays of numbers.

You can check their flickr gallery too.

I contacted them and they are nice & gave me a feedback about IMPURE.
Indeed, I wanted to know more about further implementation & especially about the fact I’d be very interested by a local implementation (I mean, outside of the browser)

As I’m beginning a big personal project about data viz inside an immersive system, I’d be very interested by plugging it to Max5, for instance.
The AS3 under the hood isn’t open-source, but I hope it will be 

Feel free to contact me, as I’m currently working a bit with IMPURE.
And spread the word for them, they just deserve that!