Slashdot Mirror

I've use EJS (Easy Java Simulations) before to make quick visualizations. It's a bit more science/physics based but might be pretty neat. Like showing a rocket go the moon (and physically accurate!) http://fem.um.es/Ejs/

Another tool is vPython. It's nice because it is in python and can be neat - again, I mostly used it for physics stuff, like simulating planetary orbits, but being python, you can show these things in just a handful lines of code. It'd be a great way to crossfunctionally do science and computing. http://vpython.org/

Since you have a strong interest in visualizations of physics phenomena, and you're already teaching your nieces and nephews how to write Python, I'd like to suggest that you check out VPython, which is a series of 3D extensions to Python. In particular I think you'll be intrigued by these examples which visualize everything from wave superposition, to magnetic fields, to concepts from relativity. For immediate gratification, the author of that examples page also has Wiimote integration, so you can bridge interest that your relatives might have in video games into an interactive experience in your physics environment.

Good luck!

Does it say anything about 3D Visualization of data? a very handy tool is VPython.

The introductory physics classes at Carnegie Mellon use VPython to run some simulations. It's pretty simple to use and intuitive. The textbook makes use of it too.

Scheme has status as a traditional teaching language in some circles, and there are good materials for it. Python tends to be quite good in my experience as well -- I once held a programming class for interested middle school students using Python, and none of them had difficulties with the language (though algorithmic thinking was more of an issue; next time, I'm waiting 'till after they've passed algebra).

Python certainly comes with enough of a standard library to be immediately useful; it has far less gotchas than C (my personal favorite for low-level work), C++ (its never-should-have-been-born evil sibling) and kin; it's an OO language but can be used procedurally; and if one is the sort to want to entertain rather than focus on teaching the core stuff, there are toolkits for doing fun/entertaining things trivially (see VPython for an example). Along those same lines, CMU's ALICE is also interesting -- I think that at one time they were using or porting to Python, though I haven't been up on it for quite some time.

All that said, unlike Scheme, Python is a language that gets quite a bit of real-world commercial use in places that aren't "scheme shops". It's easy to learn, powerful, and not only the general skills but the specific language knowledge will be applicable later -- what's not to like?

VPython does some neat tricks, mostly 3D, but some 2D as well:
http://vpython.org/

ChartDirector produces snazzy looking charts, but Edward Tufte proably would not care for them:
http://www.advsofteng.com/

You should take a look at VPython -- Simplest 3-D visualization that I know of (and it runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux).

http://www.vpython.org/

If you like Python for doing plotting check out vpython Its basically a very simple opengl interface glued into python. Its actually originally designed to as a "computational physics" pedagogy language (which its really pretty fantastic for actually) but since its really just python its very easy to turn it into a poor mans 3d/4d plotting program :)