At a Glance
- German researchers developed Datavzrd, an open-source tool that converts tabular data into interactive, self-contained HTML reports, making them easy to share across any scientific discipline.
- The tool uniquely allows users without programming skills to generate sophisticated reports by describing the layout in a simple text file, rather than writing complex computer code.
- Datavzrd reports are highly portable and require no web servers or special viewing software, making them easily shareable via email or as manuscript supplements.
- It handles massive datasets with millions of rows and can link multiple tables, enabling hierarchical exploration of complex relationships within scientific data presented to the user.
- The tool’s versatility has been demonstrated in applications from patient-specific medical data to linked archaeological findings, highlighting its broad utility in research, teaching, and evaluation.
Scientists constantly generate massive amounts of data, typically organized in tables or spreadsheets. While essential for discovery, these tables can be challenging to read, share, and understand, especially when they contain thousands or even millions of data points. To solve this, researchers at the Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (IKIM) at Germany’s University of Duisburg-Essen have developed an innovative open-source tool called Datavzrd. Detailed in a new study in the journal PLOS One, this tool transforms complex tabular data into interactive, easy-to-navigate reports.
Unlike powerful but complicated visualization tools that require programming knowledge, Datavzrd allows anyone to create sophisticated reports without writing a single line of code. Instead, users describe how their data should be displayed in a simple text file. This file serves as a blueprint, instructing the tool on which data to display and how to make it interactive with features such as sorting and filtering. The output is a single HTML file—a self-contained webpage that can be opened in any web browser without needing special software or an internet connection.
“The big advantage of Datavzrd is that it is particularly user-friendly and low-maintenance,” said computer scientist Felix Wiegand, a developer on the project, in a university press release. The reports are highly portable and can be attached to emails, shared through cloud services, or included as supplements with scientific manuscripts. Datavzrd also excels at handling complex information by linking multiple tables together. This allows users to explore data hierarchically, for instance, by clicking on a patient’s entry in one table to see their detailed genetic findings in another.
The team demonstrated Datavzrd’s power with examples from medicine and archaeology, showing how it can be used to present patient-specific cancer therapy options or to compare archaeological artifacts from different sites. “Datavzrd makes data-based results intuitive, flexible, and sustainable,” Wiegand explained. By removing the technical barriers to creating high-quality data visualizations, the tool provides a valuable resource for researchers, educators, and analysts across nearly all scientific fields.
References
- Bohnsack, U. & University of Duisburg-Essen. (2025, July 23). New open-source tool makes complex data understandable. Tech Xplore; University of Duisburg-Essen. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-07-source-tool-complex.html
- Wiegand, F., Lähnemann, D., Mölder, F., Uzuner, H., Prinz, A., Schramm, A., & Köster, J. (2025). Datavzrd: Rapid programming- and maintenance-free interactive visualization and communication of tabular data. PLOS One, 20(7), e0323079. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323079
