A few weeks ago, I came across Tableau which can be useful in my field of research despite the fact that it is meant to be used for something completely different.
What does it do?
Tableau is an interactive data analysis tool. The overall aim is to get a visual feedback from the data as fast as possible without the typical cycle of writing code, checking the output, thinking, and starting over. The software is quite flexible and allows storing the data in database servers like MySQL or PostgreSQL and leverages their capability of organising data.
What does it look like?
Here is a screencast that gives you a rough idea of what is possible. (Make sure that you select a high quality to see the user interface, perhaps even use full screen.)
Are there more sophisticated examples of analysis? How can I get data into the database?
These topics will be covered over the next weeks once I find the time to write a bit about them, as they are better off as a text rather than a video, I guess. If you have any questions on Tableau in the context of molecular dynamics simulations, please just leave a comment and I will try to cover this in future posts.