Powerful Visual Analytics Tool, Jigsaw, Now Available Free For Download!

John Stasko, and the programming geniuses at Georgia Tech, have finally released their powerful and recently updated visual analysis software, Jigsaw, into the wild.

For those of you who just want the software now, click here to go to John's newly updated website.

It has been a while since I have looked at Jigsaw.  I examined it first back in 2007 (here and here) and we last used it in a project in 2009 (here).  Back then, it was an extremely good product for a fairly narrowly focused type of analytic work.

Today, though, it appears to be a much easier to use and more general purpose type of analytic software.  I was especially blown away by the use cases demonstrated in the video below.  The video is a little long but worth it if you don't know a lot about the state of the art in visual analytics.

I am also particularly impressed with the growing list of publications assessing the software's validity and the video tutorials to help new users get started.

If you are interested in new ideas and new tools for visualizing the results of your analysis -- particularly free ones -- I strongly recommend you check Jigsaw out!

Jigsaw Demo: A Powerful, New Visual Analytics Tool (YouTube)

Yesterday, I posted my initial reaction to an extraordinary piece of software called Jigsaw I saw demo-ed during my visit to GA Tech for the Workshop on Visual Analytics Education sponsored by NVAC. Today, John Stasko and his team uploaded a video of the software in action that is a must-see.

I understand the video is a little old so some of the functions I saw are not in this video. The good thing about John and his band of software wizards, though, is that they are constantly improving the product.

Amazing Data Visualization Tool From The Geniuses At GA Tech (Jigsaw)

(Note: I am at a visual analysis conference sponsored by the National Visualization And Analytics Center so the last of the Top 5 Methods list will have to wait a day or two. In the meantime, I have found something else that is pretty cool...)

John Stasko and the computer scientists at the Information Interfaces Lab at Georgia Tech may not have found the Holy Grail of visual analysis but they have come pretty darn close with their Jigsaw product.

This extraordinary visualization tool automatically extracts entities (names, places, dates, etc.) from plain text documents. Then, it automatically creates a visualization of the relationships between those entities and the documents containing them. The screenshots below do not do it justice (I hope to have a video of the product in action within a couple of days, though).


The program is fully customizable so you can add or delete data, designate entities or create relationships to modify what the automatic entity extractors come up with.

The real power of the tool comes into play after the data is in the program. You can play with it in a variety of powerful and interesting ways all accessible through a drop dead easy user interface.

The software is continuously improving. On the horizon is the ability to use web input and there is a long analyst generated to-do list that the grad students at GA Tech are cranking through one at a time.

The software runs on a desktop and was developed with a DHS grant so government and academics should reach out to John for a test copy. GA Tech is also home of the Visual Analytics Digital Library and well worth checking out.