vizualis

Vizualis is a data visualization platform and visual language designed to enable researchers, analysts, and designers to build interactive visuals from complex data sets. It combines a declarative styling language with an interoperable data model and a rendering engine capable of WebGL-accelerated graphics as well as fallback SVG-based visuals. The ecosystem centers on exploration, reproducibility, and accessibility.

The name Vizualis is formed from "visual" and the suffix -alis, intended to convey relation to visualization and visual design.

Conceptual work on Vizualis began in the mid-2010s as an international collaboration of visual computing researchers. The project released a first stable version in 2017 as an open framework; subsequent releases added real-time interactivity, accessibility features, and an extensible plugin system.

Key components include a declarative specification language for charts, a data binding layer, a rendering engine, and an interaction layer. It supports data sources ranging from CSV to relational databases and JSON APIs. It emphasizes reproducible workflows, theming, and responsive visual design.

Vizualis is used in data journalism, scientific visualization, business intelligence, and education to create dashboards, complex network visualizations, geospatial maps, and time-series analyses. The community fosters open standards and interoperability with other visualization tools.

Licensing is typically open-source with permissive terms; the project encourages contributions, documentation, and educational use. Critics note the learning curve for advanced features and performance considerations on very large datasets.