While researching an article for JavaScript based graphing solutions, I happened upon the project page for SIMILE Widgets JavaScript libraries. SIMILE Widgets has a a number of other interesting libraries (see ‘Runway’, a JavaScript based clone of iTunes ‘Covershow’) but the project that captured my attention was the ”Timeline” library. As the name suggests, Timeline allows the developer to create an interactive timeline, thus ‘Visualizing Temporal Data’. Timeline creates an easily accessible, engaging and interactive visualization that immediately had me immersed.
Check out the demo Timeline of the JFK assasination:
I searched high and low and a was unable to find a competing solution that comes close to SIMILE Widgets’ Timeline. To my knowledge nothing comes close. Additionally, a independently developed supporting library aptly named TimeMap uses Google, OpenLayers, and Bing in coordination with the SIMILE Timeline library to load one or more datasets in JSON, KML, or GeoRSS onto both a map and a timeline simultaneously. You can check out the project Timeline library here and the Timemap project on google code here.