Processing is a programming lanugage and open source development environment for visualization, based on work done at MIT’s Aesthetics and Computation department. The project has now officially moved out of beta with the release last week of Processing 1.0 (for Linux, Windows, and Macs). From their press release:

Today, on November 24, 2008, we launch the 1.0 version of the Processing software. Processing is a programming language, development environment, and online community that since 2001 has promoted software literacy within the visual arts. Initially created to serve as a software sketchbook and to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context, Processing quickly developed into a tool for creating finished professional work as well. (From the press release)

Apps written in Processing can then be made web-friendly and ported to Javascript, using John Ressig’s (of JQuery fame) Processing.js (released back in May 08). The Processing.js demos do a great job of showing off the port using the original demos from Processing. (They work best in Firefox 3, a WebKit Nightly, or Opera 9.5)

Matt Ryall has contributed a couple of more complex visualizations, including this visualization of comments (based on Digg’s Stack by Stamen Design):

And a network diagram of blog contributors (perhaps inspired by TouchGraph ?):

If you’re inspired to start creating a visualization of your own, you might want to check out the Processing.js Google Group.

Once you’ve mastered that, you can combine Processing.js with the SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine from Mozilla, in order to run Processing code on an iPhone:

(There is also a mobile version of Processing, but this requires a Java-enabled phone.)

Finally, if you hate Javascript, there’s also a recently released port of Processing to ActionScript