Last posts on information visualization

Emotional Cartography

2009-04-29T18:11:00+02:00

The free-downloadable book Emotional Cartography - Technologies of the Self is a collection of essays that explores the political, social and cultural implications of visualizing intimate biometric data and emotional experiences using technology. The theme of this collection of essays is to investigate the apparent desire for technologies to map emotion, using a variety of different approaches.

The Allosphere: an immersive virtual reality system to visualize scientific data

2009-04-20T13:35:00+02:00

The need for computing tools that allows to visualize, explore and manipulate huge multidimensional data is becoming a key priority in several fields of science and engineering

From this perspective, an interesting possibility is the use of Immersive Virtual Reality. For example, researchers at the California NanoSystem Institute lead by Professor JoAnn Kuchera-Morin have created the AlloSphere, an interactive chamber made of two 5-meter-radius hemispheres of perforated aluminum that are designed to be optically opaque and acoustically transparent.

There are currently two projectors, mounted around the seam between the two hemispheres, approaching eye-limited resolution on the inner surface. The loudspeaker real-time sound synthesis cluster (around 500 individual speaker elements plus sub-woofers) is suspended behind the aluminum screen resulting in 3-D audio. Other clusters include simulation, sensor-array processing, effector-array processing, real-time video processing for motion-capture and visual computing, render-farm/real-time ray-tracing and radiosity cluster, and content and prototyping environments.

You can tour the Allosphere in this stunning video:

Here is an exterior photo of the AlloSphere @ the California Nanosystem Institute

Turing Tables to understand earthquakes

2009-04-16T13:05:00+02:00

Earthquakes are complex natural phenomena that are difficult to predict but also to understand.

German artist Franz John created an online installation - Turing Tables - that makes earthquakes easier to fathom while reminding us how alive the Earth is.

Inspired to the work of matematician Alan Turing, The Turing Tables gathers data from a multitude of small earthquake sensors (called “fingers”) stationed around the globe into a real-time, online installation before converting the data into image and sound. Green-and-black moving wallpaper—composed of numeric data and the locations and times at which the readings are taken—fills the room, along with a grating yet melodic soundtrack courtesy of Oakland-based sound artist Ed Osborn.

Quicktime-Movie (40MB)

Closr.

2009-04-10T14:14:00+02:00

Closr is a free service developed by the infoviz company VisUp that allows sharing and zooming high-resolution images (JPG, PNG e GIF format supported) in an easy, simple and fast way. The widgets have several useful functions, including a full-screen button, drag&drop photo navigation, and the possibility of resetting the picture to the starting size.

Thanks to these features, it is possible to embed the images in a blog post or in social networks. More, widgets can be tracked and organized using tags.

It took me 30 secs to upload and share this picture:

The creators of the service are Daniele Galiffa and Gabriele Venier. Nice job guys!

Own Your Choices

2009-04-03T17:08:12+02:00

Re-blogged from Info Aesthetics

Own Your Choices aims to reveal how personal choices affect others and characterize one's self. In particular, the website focuses on starting the conversation around topics such as tobacco, health, self-image, culture, alcohol, relationships and school. Users are invited to connect with peers on these issues, to share their opinion and influence the conversation. And by accident, the interface seems driven by simple dynamic graphs of the statists resulting from the data-gathering surveys.

Individual people are represented by small outer sectors on a circle, which are linked to individual profile pages. One can use filters on the right side of the screen, for instance to filter by gender, age or location, or to find like-minded peers, or complete opposites. More colors means more activity.

Textual emotion recognition and visualization

2008-11-04T22:02:14+01:00

From InfoAesthetics

a textual emotion recognition & visualization engine based on the concept of synesthesia , or in other words: "code that feels the words visually". the synesketch application is able to dynamically transfer the text into animated visual patterns.

the emotional parameters are based on a WordNet-based lexicon of words with their general & specific emotional weights, for the emotion types happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise. the visualization is based on a generative painting system of imaginary colliding particles. colors & shapes of these patterns depend on the type and intensity of interpreted textual emotions.

Web Trend Map 2008

2008-07-22T14:10:00+02:00

Have a look at the Web Trend Map 2008, by Information Architects

The map is based on the Tokyo underground

Larger formats are available:

The shape of music

2008-05-08T18:18:22+02:00

Via KurzweilAI.net

Three music professors have developed a method called "geometrical music theory" that translates the language of musical theory into that of contemporary geometry. (Dmitri Tymoczko, Princeton University) They categorize sequences of notes, like chords, rhythms and scales into "families" that can be represented by points in complex geometrical spaces.

Viewing Google Sky through a browser

2008-03-14T13:19:07+01:00

Google unveiled a browser version of its Google Sky application

The browser version of Google Earth software allows you to zoom in and out and pan around the celestial bodies, search for planets and galaxies and view the sky through infrared, x-ray, ultraviolet, and microwave views.

My Map: Email visualization

2007-10-20T17:20:04+02:00

Re-blogged from Information Aesthetics

My Map is a data visualization application capable of rendering the relationships between the user & individuals in the address book by examining the TO:, FROM:, and CC: fields of every email in the 60,000-large email archive.

the intensity of the relationship is determined by the color intensity of the line. "My Map" allows to explore different relational groupings & periods of time, revealing the temporal ebbs & flows in various relationships. My Map thus becomes a veritable self-portrait, a visual reflection of personal associations.

link: christopherbaker.net

Death by PowerPoint

2007-10-13T15:35:00+02:00

Via Leeander.com

Want to make a successful powerpoint presentation? Keep these few simple rules in mind (credits to Alexei Kapterev)

2007 NSF Scientific Visualization Awards Announced

2007-10-01T22:35:00+02:00

(Computer tomography scanner imagery of the sinuses of a patient)

The National Science Foundation (NSF) along with the journal Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), today announced the winners of their fifth annual International Science and Technology Visualization Challenge.

Illustrators, photographers, computer programmers, and graphics specialists from around the world were invited to submit visualizations that would intrigue, explain and educate. More than 200 entries were received from 23 countries, representing every continent except the Arctic and Antarctica.

"Breakthroughs in science and engineering are often portrayed in movies and literature as 'ah-ha!' moments. What these artists and communicators have given us are similar experiences, showing us how bats fly or how nicotine becomes physically addictive," said Jeff Nesbit, director of NSF's Office of Legislative and Public Affairs. "We look at their visualizations, and we understand."

Winning entries can be viewed on the NSF Web site, the Science website (www.sciencemag.org ), and in the print issue of Science. First place and honorable mention winners are listed below. A number of semifinalist awards were made as well. Note: only two researchers are listed in this release; in some instances several others contributed to the winning visualization. No first place or honorable mention awards were made this year in the Illustrations category.

Affective diary

2007-09-05T18:33:22+02:00

Via InfoAesthetics

from the project website:

The affective diary assembles sensor data, captured from the user and uploaded via their mobile phone, to form an ambiguous, abstract colourful body shape. With a range of other materials from the mobile phone, such as text and MMS messages, photographs, etc., these shapes are made available to the user. Combining these materials, the diary is designed to invite reflection and to allow the user to piece together their own stories.

Anymails: Visualization of Email Inbox

2007-08-03T13:57:20+02:00

Via Networked Performance

“My thesis research investigates how one can use metaphors of natural form and behavior for information to support a better understanding of data systems. In everyday life we receive information mediated by behavior patterns and forms of appearance. For instance, if someone is crying, we can infer that the person is sad or may be happy. We can interpret this kind of information and set it in context to the situation because of our previous experiences. This is part of our human perception and supports a better understanding of situations and information. Users are confronted by constantly growing and changing amounts of data. There is a need for new visualizations that support understanding of information and its dynamic nature. I use natural metaphors to represent information. This includes the structure, navigation, interactivity, visualization and presentation of content. Visual and behavioral metaphors breathe life into information, creating rich, memorable experiences for users.”

Anymails: Visualization of my Email Inbox [Design & Concept: Carolin Horn; Code: Florian Jenett; Institute & Advisor: DMI Boston, Prof. Brian Lucid] - was developed during my MFA thesis Natural Metaphor For Information Visuzalizationthesis.zip, PDF, 7mb) at the Dynamic Media Institute Boston in 2007. The emails used in the prototype are read from the users local Apple Mail database. The prototype was built with Flash and Processing. The Anymails source code (OS-X 10.4.9 ppc) is available for download (2.5mb). (

Visual relaxation landscapes

2007-07-26T19:11:54+02:00

Via Information Aesthetics

This website shows beatiful animated landscape loops designed for visual relaxation (Flash plugin required)

Information Visualization - Cambridge, UK

2007-04-27T12:44:27+02:00

Via UsabilityNews

Event Date: 14 May 2007 to 14 May 2007

Cambridge Usability Group: The speaker at our next event will be Bob Spence, author of the textbook "Information Visualization: Design for Interaction" and Emeritus Professor of Information Engineering at Imperial College London.

Date: Monday 14th May
Time: 6.30 for 6.45
Venue: Microsoft Research, Cambridge
Cost: The event is FREE and you do not need to be a UK UPA member to attend
Registration: Please email cambridge.usability@gmail.com to reserve a place.

webpage wind maker

2007-04-01T20:31:01+02:00

I could not resist to re-blog this stuff - so cooool!

from infoaesthetics

an ambient weather widget that applies the current wind conditions to any user-chosen website. it uses a United States ZIP Code to grab local conditions from the Yahoo Weather RSS feed, & animates individual pieces of the website, such as text blocks & images, according to the strength of the wind.

see also informative google themes & unseen weather video & voloce weather visualization & weather datacloud.

Information Aesthetics: subway-style trend maps of 2007

2007-01-22T00:18:10+01:00

Re-blogged from Information Aesthetics

a collection of trends maps documenting 2007, based on the visual style of subway maps. one map illustrates the recent web trends, while another shows the more general social trends (pdf) in Western society, including the rise of social networks & the democratization of the web. (via Information Aesthetics)

Information Aesthetics: News stories network graph

2007-01-15T23:22:55+01:00

Re-blogged from Information Aesthetics

a network visualization & news browsing tool that aggregates the news from more than 1,100 journalistic sources online, as part of one of the major Italian Internet Service providers Libero. GraphNews analyzes the content of news articles, with the goal of highlighting the main subjects (i.e. people, products, localities, societies, institutions, etc.) & extracts the relations that occur between them, resulting in a graph visualization of these subjects & their relations.
a user can click a node (ellipse box), to create a new graph with subject & relations tied to that specific node, or an arc (square box), to return all the news that speak about the 2 subjects joined from the arc. GraphNews also allows to change of detail level or time period (i.e. day, week, month) of the graph.

a map of the 'black holes' of the World Wide Web

2007-01-15T23:12:40+01:00

via information aesthetics

a map of the 'black holes' of the World Wide Web, created by the "Reporters without Borders" organization, illustrating the countries that do not provide free access to the Internet information (i.e. Belarus, Birma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan & Vietnam).

Technology Review: IBM's InfoViz software predictions

2007-01-07T23:24:25+01:00

Via Technology review

Technology Review interviewed Kristof Kloeckner, the vice president of strategy and technology for IBM's software group, to find out how software can be used to help people and businesses cope with the increasing amount of information, and how software will evolve as that information grows more complex.

Read the full interview

3D RSS feed reader

2006-12-15T00:03:39+01:00

Via Infoaesthetic

univeRSS is a 3D RSS feed reader for VISTA that "introduces a full-screen 3D universe where galaxies represent the folders of your RSS feed directory, and the stars are represented by the spinning cubes that hold the feed information. Size and position of the feed cubes indicate how many unread items they contain" (quoted from the Microsoft website)

Currently UniveRSS uses the RSS Feed Store managed through Internet Explorer 7. Later versions will allow you to manage the Feed Store from within the UniveRSS application.

Automatic display of complex data in Second Life

2006-12-03T13:13:50+01:00

Via 3D Point

SL resident Turner Boehm has developed an application that allows to automatically model the links and nodes of a complex system using SL objects. The picture above shows multiple interconnecting software systems represented by an automatically generated set of prims, based on information stored outside SL.

Moodjam mood visualization

2006-11-29T22:19:47+01:00

Via Infoaesthetic

Moodjam is an online visualization of people's moods visualized as beautiful color strips. Users can keep a record of their moods every hour, day, and weeks and share them with friends, family or co-workers.

TagCrowd

2006-11-07T00:28:13+01:00

From the TagCrowd blog

TagCrowd is a web application for visualizing word frequencies in any user-supplied text by creating what is popularly known as a tag cloud.

Today, tag clouds are primarily used for navigation and visualization on websites that employ user-generated metadata (tags) as a categorization scheme. (Flickr is a good example.)

TagCrowd is trying to do something different.

When we look at a tag cloud, we see not only a richly informative, beautiful image that communicates much in a single glance. We see a whole new approach to text.

Potential uses for tag clouds extend far outside the online realm: as topic summaries for written works, as name tags for conferences, as resumes in a single glance, as analyses for survey data, as visual poetry; the list goes on.

In the future, TagCrowd will develop into a suite of experimental tools and tutorials that empower social and collaborative uses for tag clouds and related visualizations.

US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud 1776-2006

2006-11-05T22:15:37+01:00

Re-blogged from IFTF's future now

A very interesting way to see the changes in rhetoric over time (you can move the slider around to see trends in word usage)

The above tag cloud shows the popularity, frequency, and trends in the usages of words within speeches, official documents, declarations, and letters written by the Presidents of the US between 1776 - 2006 AD.

The dataset consists of over 360 documents downloaded from Encyclopedia Britannica and ThisNation.com.

Flickr Graph

2006-10-30T15:50:00+01:00

Flickr Graph is an award winning application (FITC awards 2005) developed by Marcos Weskamp that explores the social relationships inside flickr.com. It makes use of the classic attraction-repulsion algorithm for graphs.

Try Flickr Graph here

Visualization of literature trends

2006-09-08T11:15:00+02:00

Via infosthetics

CiteSpace is a network data visualization technique that facilitates the detection of emerging trends and transient patterns in scientific literature.

From Infoesthetics:

CiteSpace is based on 2 concepts: "research fronts", defined as an emergent grouping of concepts & underlying research issues & "intellectual base", the network of citations & co-citations of a research front in scientific literature. the size of a node is proportional to the normalized citation counts in the latest time interval. The label size of each node is proportional to citations of the article, thus larger nodes also have larger-sized labels. the user can enlarge font sizes at will, & both the width & the length of a link are proportional to the corresponding cocitation coefficient. the color of a link indicates the earliest appearance time of the link with reference to chosen thresholds. current applications show complex patterns regarding mass extinction research & terrorism research.