Data visualization can play a key role in comparative genomics, for example, underpinning the investigation of conserved synteny patterns. Strudel is a desktop application that allows users to easily compare both genetic and physical maps interactively and efficiently. It can handle large datasets from several genomes simultaneously, and allows all-by-all comparisons between these.
Availability and implementation: Installers for Strudel are available for Windows, Linux, Solaris and Mac OS X at http://bioinf.scri.ac.uk/strudel/.