I first got the idea for FreeForm while doing a side project where I was generating a lot of structured data, usually in a JSON or XML form. While these file formats are ideal for computer storage and interpretation of data, they are not as visually engaging as is desirable if one is trying to communicate an idea or trend. FreeForm is a dream on my part to help solve this problem. My hope is that a piece of software like FreeForm will bring data engineers, business people, presenters, and otherwise ambivalent civilians closer toward a common understanding of the data that massively influence their everyday lives.
FreeForm is a large undertaking on my part, especially since I decided to start from scratch and use only Python and Pygame, a low level graphics wrapper. Though FreeForm is in no way complete or as polished as I would like, I am very proud of the work that I've done over the past 24 hours. Because I built the entire program from the ground up on my own, I know exactly how flexible FreeForm is and how great a resource it could be. Best of all, FreeForm is entirely Python, so it can compile on any platform!
I plan to continue developing FreeForm and to expand it with customizable data node images, dynamic grouping and nesting of elements beyond a parent-child relationship, a custom scripting language to allow for engaging and interactive presentations that could replace the monotony of Powerpoint, and finally, to support more markup languages than just the JSON that it now uses.
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