According to its website, the Google Visualization API allows programmers to access multiple sources of structured data that can be displayed using a choice of visualizations, which include pyramid and funnel charts, motion charts, simulated gauges, and a host of other static and animated display options.
The developer community can also use the API to create, share and reuse visualizations, which could enhance the presentation of adult website affiliate programs, traffic analysis systems, ad management services and more.
"We spend a fair amount of time on data display and visualization projects at Google," product manager Nir Bar-Lev said. "And we have found that the 'last mile' of these projects tend to become full projects in and of themselves."
Bar-Lev was referring to the process of taking large amounts of data and presenting it in a way that not only makes it understandable, but visually interesting enough to hold the viewer's attention.
The new technology stems from one of Google's recent acquisitions.
"When we acquired Gapminder last year, we were excited by the opportunity to use Gapminder's powerful visualization techniques to bring new life and usefulness to Google datasets," Bar-Lev said.
The launch of the API comes with the help of the Google Docs team, which is supporting the use of gadgets and the Visualization API in spreadsheets, such as the popular and visually compelling Gapminder Motion Chart.
According to Bar-Lev, members of the Google Visualization API team will be at Google I/O on May 28-29 to discuss the API as well as visualization techniques in general.
Example gadgets are available from the Google Visualization API Gadget Gallery.
