Anu.js
Anu.js is an immersive data visualization toolkit built on the web-based 3D game engine Babylon.js and WebXR. Anu is heavily inspired by D3's data-binding DOM manipulation patterns and visualization utilities. Anu works synergistically with D3 to bring these patterns to Babylon.js, enabling data-driven manipulation of the Babylon.js scene graph supporting developers in creating 3D immersive visualizations through utilities, prefabs, animations, and interactions.
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Why the name Anu?
In Babylonian mythology, Anu (Akkadian: 𒀭𒀭) was the god of creation. We think it to be a fitting namesake for a toolkit focused on enabling the creation of immersive data visualizations with the Babylon.js engine. The key word being "enabling" as Anu is not focused on creating out of the box visualizations, but rather providing the tools you need to construct visualizations yourself. In other words, instead of handing you the painting, Babylon.js gives you the canvas and the paint, while Anu gives your the brushes and the easel.
Why is this important?
The design space of immersive visualization and analytics is vast and rapidly evolving. Visualization researchers and practitioners need flexible tools that allow for the degrees of creative freedom necessary to adequately explore this design space. You can browse some of the cutting edge research in this field at IADesign.Space. Many of these projects implemented their visualization code from scratch with game engines such as Unity with very little development support. As these applications are developed natively for their target platforms, however, they miss out on the universal reach on the web. Anu seeks to make the process of developing immersive visualizations with web technologies easier, systematic, and enjoyable while maintaining the high-level of programmability require to implement novel and innovative visualizations.
Why the web?
For over the past decade, the web has been the premier platform for the creation, publishing, and consumption of data visualizations. Visualization researchers and practitioners have used the web to create novel and effective visualizations that can be accessed anywhere in the world on any device with a modern web browser. As XR devices become more and more popular, the web will play a larger role in these XR ecosystems and platforms. Immersive analytics can leverage the web to deploy visualizations and systems that can be used both in and outside of XR, and without the need to download or install large programs or applications. Furthermore, developers seeking to create immersive analytics applications can leverage their existing knowledge in web development. In particular, those with experience using D3 should find using Anu very familiar and straightforward to learn.
Project Maintainers
Anu is developed and maintained by researchers and engineers from the JPMorgan Chase Global Technology Applied Research Team.