Well, I guess it is time to finally let the cat out of the bag.  For the past few months Michael VanDaniker and I have been working away on a new open source project we have named Axiis (you can thank Juan Sanchez for the great name.)   We are still a couple months away from our first public alpha release, but I think it is worthwhile spending some time to discuss the details of what we have been developing. 

Axiis represents a new way to conceive of and develop interactive data visualizations.   It is based on Flex and ActionScript 3.0 but has a uniquely different approach to creating visualizations than the standard Flex charts, and pretty much any other data visualization package I have seen.  Our primary goal in developing Axiis is to create very concise, expressive, and flexible framework that uses a purely declarative (markup) based approach to create anything from simple cartesian charts to very complex and involved data visualizations.  

Den ganzen Beitrag lesen…

The team over at Universal Mind has just launched a private beta of their flagship product, SpatialKey, a product that I first saw a prototype of back at Adobe MAX 2007.

Den ganzen Beitrag lesen…

For those of you who were unable to attend Adobe MAX this year, Adobe was kind enough to record all of the sessions and release them publicly.   My session covered off on Data Visualization with Flex, and was structured as a high level overview, good for beginners to advanced users.  I primarily cover the use of Flex charts, and quickly go through several examples from the basics to more advanced customization.   The preso is relatively quick paced, but should give people a good overview of what options exist within the Flex Chart controls and how you might use them within your projects.

You can see a high-res HD version directly on AdobeTV here.   

I just got back from my trip up to San Fran, for Adobe MAX 2008, and I wanted to post the source code for my session on Data Visualization.   My preso was geared to target a broad spectrum of developer levels from beginner to advanced.  I have four code demos that cover off on data structures for charts, data formatting, chart styling/appearance, and chart interaction.   Each demo walks through a progression from simple to advanced concepts and code.   From the session feedback survey feedback I received today, it appears that audience found the presentation helpful and valuable as I had relatively high marks, and few people told me it was one of the better presentations at the conference.   To everyone who attended, thanks for coming, and I hope you got some value out of it.

Here is the link to the source files.

Overall I found the conference as a whole to be a bit of a let down at the content level.  It was great to see all the familiar faces and catch up with people, but I didn’t have the same feeling of excitement that I had last year in Chicago.  It seemed this year that Adobe was doing a lot more product refinement than pushing any real new boundaries.   Flash Catalyst (Thermo) has not really changed (just gotten further along) than what we saw in Chicago last year, and overall the MAX “Sneaks” were rather blah… ActionScript on the server to render HTML… c’mon guys we were doing that kind of stuff with .asp 10 years ago.   I sure hope MAX last year was not the apex of Adobe under the guidance of Bruce Chizen, and that now we are starting a decline.    I also realize that Adobe/Macromedia has pushed so many boundaries over the last couple of years that as a company it is now in a position where it needs it platform technologies to cross the chasm from early adopters to a more mainstream market, which for people like me becomes boring – because I always want to work with new technologies and be that early adopter level.

Monday November 17th is the official start date for Adobe MAX.   I will speaking at several sessions throughout the conference.

On Monday I will be speaking with Juan Sanchez about Degrafa at the 360|MAX unconference.  The presentation will be from 4:00pm to 5:30pm.

Then Monday night at 9:30 I will be doing a Birds of a Feather session with Juan, speaking again about Degrafa.

Wednesday at 3:30pm I will be doing my Flex Data Visualization presentation.  Adobe asked me to do this preso and to try and serve as wide an audience as possible from Flex rookie to advanced Flex developers.  60 minutes is not a lot of time so I will be moving quickly and I have put together 4 new code demos where I walk through code from simple to advanced examples that cover off on  Data Structures, Working with Chart Series, Styling Charts, and Chart Interactivity.   Pretty much everything is focused on Flex charting, versus other components.  I will also be covering off on some of the open source components I have previously released like the DataSet Component, as well as one or two new components I have created that make it easier to customize Flex Charts.

I hope to see you there, and please don’t be shy about introducing yourself if you have read this blog.   MAX is a really fun conference and I am looking forward to it.

UPDATE 11/14/2008:  According to the MAX scheduler it says my session is SOLD OUT, but don’t worry if it is like any other MAX event it is first come, first serve – so just be there early.   I also realized the session description is slightly different than the content.  It is hard in 60 minutes to get too in depth about anything, my session will show different techniques for dealing with data, chart appearance and styling, and user interaction within Flex charting.

Dashboard Insight has just featured my Google Finance dashboard as their dashboard of the week.   Thanks DI!

At 360 Flex San Jose Adobe (Ted Patrick) recorded all session presentations in HD with sound.  Today they just published my preso.   Unfortunately my laptop was giving me fits and I could never get Keynote to go into “presentation” mode.   Outside of that and a lot of “umm and uhhs” while I was talking the presentation did a pretty good job of presenting the material and giving the community some new MIT code.   You can also see it via Adobe Media Player to get the full rez version.

2) Micro Histogram  (click for interactive version)

Today I am releasing a chart slicer component that behaves like the one seen on Google Finance.

This is a pretty short post that I wanted to get out to the community.  Below are the links and source code (view source) for the presentation I gave today at 360 Flex in San Jose. 

GoogleFinance Example: (view source coming soon, still needs some refactoring and clean up.)

http://www.brightpointinc.com/flexdemos/googlefinance.html

DataSet Example: 

http://www.brightpointinc.com/flexdemos/360flex/DataSetExample.html

Interactivity Example: http://www.brightpointinc.com/flexdemos/360flex/InteractivityExample.html

MicroChart Example: 

http://www.brightpointinc.com/flexdemos/360flex/MicroChartsSample.html