You can think of a visualization mod as a visualization, whose appearance is specified by the mod developer who created the visualization mod, but where all data-related functionality is handled in the same way as in any of the native Spotfire visualizations.
An end user feels that the visualization mod is integrated with Spotfire, because the visualization responds to interactions in the same way as native visualizations do. For example, it is possible to drag a visualization mod to the visualization canvas, and change what is selected on the various visualization axes. Moreover, filtering of the data works as usual across all visualizations, no matter if they are native visualizations or visualization mods. An end user might not even notice there is a difference.
The visualization mods can be based on any of the data sources supported by Spotfire; in-memory data, in-database data, streaming data, and data-on-demand. The area chart below is an example of a visualization mod.
To learn about visualization mod development, see Developing Mods.