Yet again, Nathan at FlowingData corrals a good application tool/tip....

Open Source Data Visualization Framework - Axiis

Axiis, an open source data visualization framework in Flex, was released a few days ago under an MIT license. I haven't done much in Flex, but from what I hear, it's relatively easy to pick up. You get a lot of bang out of a few lines of code. Axiis makes things even easier, and provides visualization outside the built in Flex graph packages.

Axiis gives developers the ability to expressively define their data visualizations through concise and intuitive markup. Axiis has been designed with a specific focus on elegant code, where your code can be just as beautiful as your visual output.

Above is the wedge stack graph. Here's your standard area graphs:

See what other visualizations you can create with Axiis here.

Another interesting post from "FlowingData"

"Interaction Design Pilot Year Churns Out Great Student Projects

The Interaction Design Pilot Year is a full-time intense curriculum that includes a number of skills-based modules (such as video prototyping and computational design), followed by in-depth investigations in to graphical/tangible interfaces and service design.

The end result? A lot of great work from some talented and motivated students. There are a number of project modules, but naturally, I'm most drawn to the interactive data visualization projects. Here are a few of the projects.