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Category Archives: visualization
My First Review Of Twinity
Just as I was griping about the lack of anything interesting to write about in the wide world of visualization, Twinity got a big chunk of change to back its claim of developing 3d digital cities. What is Twinity? (No, it’s not Neo‘s girlfriend’s Twitter presence.) What the hell is a 3d digital city? And why do I think that virtual worlds and digital cities are not the same thing? Read all about it in my latest at VizWorld.
With Respect To
It’s July 1st, so I’ve been back in the Midwest for, what, three months? A quarter of a year.
After fits and starts, travel and more travel and D gone for half of each month, we are beginning to own our home, home-ownership and the giant yard that always needs tending. While D mows, I trim the plethora of plants we inherited and attack the weeds which threaten to take over after every rain. While he puts food on the grill, I sort through the piles of mail addressed to Our New Neighbor or Bamani Venkat (my new name, which I am sure is a result of the following thought process over at Ohio Snail Mail Spam Central: “Maitri Venkat-R … what? Aaaah, new name! *FREAKOUT* Damned furners. *FREAKOUT* I don’t know what to do! Let’s just put it down as Bamani Venkat. Next!“ I am told not to complain as this is a great way to cull the junk mail.)
I had forgotten how beautiful the midwestern countryside is. From atop a western hill, we often lose hours staring at the fields between our house and the county to the south, and the sun setting behind a limestone cliff. Or a wild turkey or ten and deer that invariably spring forth from the same spot in the woods to the southwest. D watches them without a single movement, like an Ent or a patient predator, while the city girl in me moves and tries to get as close as possible without scaring off the critters. I scare off the critters. Apparently, they have great eyesight and like neither bright colors nor sudden movements.
Summertime, and the sun takes forever to wane in these northern latitudes. At 10pm last night, patches of fuchsia and imperial violet sky peeked out from breaks in the trees and rocks. Breathtaking. And that’s when the fireflies and stars come out. As the sun sets, they rise higher and higher, until you cannot tell where the fireflies in the tall trees end and the stars in the sky begin. The stars. Oh, the stars. You can see every last one of them lying in the soft grass. The Big Dipper, Draco, Cassiopeia, the rest of the northern sky, they’re all there. I asked D if this is what it was like for him growing up in the Wisconsin back 40. He nodded. Wow. I grew up in the Kuwaiti desert, where few ventured out at night and the twinkling red lights over the city’s skyscrapers were all the stars you needed. Besides, living in the midst of the merciless urbanization of a coastal desert environment, the only animals we got to see were jack, squat and the occasional feral cat rummaging through the garbage. Now you know why I want to say “Yeah, and one day we put dear old Humpy down and ate him with buns and ketchup” each time someone asks me whether I grew up with a camel in my backyard.
Might I have been a different person raised in a country house surrounded by trees, fresh air and animals? Who knows? Was I envious of kids raised here? Possibly. I remember midwestern farm kids, though, who wanted to trade places with me, bored of shucking corn, scrubbing the horses and other endless chores. I may not consider a city, be it Kuwait City or New York City, an ideal place to raise a kid, but people live every which way and that is how it is, equally legitimate. The way to go then is to enjoy our geographic variety as a species and live alongside, with respect to. When I once asked my Barcelona-dwelling friend Annie if she would ever move back to northern Wisconsin, she replied, “It’s not a great place to be, but a wonderful place to be from.”
Writing At VizWorld
As you all know, I love everything to do with the earth, from mantle rocks to surface maps, and computer visualization. With its varied interests and equally disparate readership, VatulBlog doesn’t seem like the place to post about my scientific interests, especially if I want to generate consistent discussion. So, when Randall Hand, senior editor of VizWorld.com, asked last week if I would write for the VizWorld blog, I eagerly accepted.
I have three pieces up so far: Challenges In Earth Science Visualization, Social Geography and Testing Map Warper Beta. Since I am not a hardcore hardware and graphics nerd (that would be Randall) but understand them enough to work with others to turn scientific ideas into reality, I will write about the latest in visualization techniques, conferences I attend, crazy experiments, i.e. how I broke Java, GoogleEarth or Blender today, and collaborations with other technologists and non-technologists. The best thing I’ve tested and written about to date is Map Warper Beta and how, in ten minutes yesterday, I used it to georeference an 1895 map of the French Quarter & Garden District of New Orleans and export it to Google Maps. Cool stuff, and I want to bring it to you, so you can do it, too.
Meanwhile, VatulBlog will chug along, with the usual Deep Thoughts and many, many plots of HinJew World Domination.
Where 2.0 Impressions
This week, I’m at the Where2.0 conference in San Jose, California. It’s all about making maps, now enabled by the web and mobile devices. If you really want to know what’s going on, search #where20 in Twitter. I’m surprised we’re not a trending topic given the internet-choking number of tweets coming out of here. What the hell is #woofwednesday and why is it a Top 10 trending topic?
While most everyone is going on about APIs and platforms, I am as always enthralled with novel ways to access and visualize data. In this arena, I’ve been impressed by the presented work of Stamen Design’s Maps From Scratch, Urban Mapping‘s transit trees and animations (GORGEOUS stuff, but I can’t find pictures or videos online – if you do, please provide links in the comments) and Sense Networks’ CitySense 4D heatmaps. Other than being beautiful and innovative mapping techniques (which make you go “Wow, this data makes so much more sense viewed like that!”), they remind you not to be dependent on Google or another major map API to the point where you force your perception into accepting that there are only certain ways to view our world. In other words, let the data and relationships between that data dictate the map, rather than allow a pre-canned map define the data. Again, I’m all about (Open) standards, but let’s not standardize our way into a small dark box.
Also liked:
- Nokia’s Ovi Maps Beta with 2.5D buildings on faux (shaded) terrain. 3D structures on georeferenced 3D terrain, in my opinion, is the only way to understand built-up spaces in geographic context.
- Greater New Orleans Community Data Center’s Denice Ross and James Fee talk on how junk mail and the geoweb helped a tally of post-Katrina repopulation numbers. Denice’s advice: Create metadata-rich & usable maps which present correct information that matter to locals.
- Grand vizier Jack Dangermond‘s talk on online mapping enabling the government into transparency, accountability and coughing up data.
- Matthew Ericson, deputy graphics director at The New York Times, showing us how they made some of my favorite 2008 presidential election RedState-BlueState maps.
Dude, Velodyne Lidar demo with Radiohead’s House Of Cards laser! Gotta go.
CGSociety & NVidia Announce Winners Of NVArt Competition
The winners of the fourth NVArt Surreal Competition (Thanks, D!)
Looking at the pictures, I wondered, “Why do all of these look like Jacek Yerka‘s work?” until I read the premise of the competition (not a big fan of reading the recipe first).
… artists were invited to recreate their most imaginative fantasies in the style of master surrealist, Jacek Yerka. They did so in good measure, with 400 entries sent in from 65 countries.
First Prize’s work is neat, but I really like the perspective and mystery of Third Prize.
Wishlist Item #1: Globe4D
Globe4D from Leiden University in the Netherlands
… an interactive, four-dimensional globe. It’s a projection of the Earth’s surface on a physical sphere. It shows the historical movement of the continents as its main feature, but it is also capable of displaying all kinds of other geographical data such as climate changes, plant growth, radiation, rainfall, forest fires, seasons, airplane routes, and more.
Check out the demo! I take it rotating the globe is the 3D component and moving the ring controls the time dimension. What a great way to understand tectonics by seeing all plate motion at once, instead of on one limited map at a time. Wonder if the inputs are static or can be altered in external software for simulations. I’d love to have one, except in English. Paleogeen sounds less like a geologic period and more like geriatric pomade.
Day 1284: Visualizing The Economy
FortiusOne drops the GeoCommons News Dashboard with an introductory visualization tool known as the ObamaMeter, which ”[keeps] tabs on the US economy, the global economy and the stimulus through [a] visual dashboard.” Sean Gorman, founder and CEO of FortiusOne, writes on the company blog:
One map or analysis did not get the job done. They needed a collection of maps providing status on a range of indicators critical to conducting business. We decided to fuse the two concepts together into a dashboard. In this case of the demo, answering the question, “if I was the president what economic indicators would I want to see to better manage the country.”
To accomplish the task we collected 15 data sets and categorized them into the following categories: Employment, Foreclosures, Stimulus and Global Economics … When available (foreclosures and unemployment) we mapped data from November 2008 to provide an indicator of the status before Obama took office and January 2009 (or December if January was not yet available) for after he took office, and then also mapped change between the two time periods.
And, if you don’t trust the maps, you can make your own mashup! All of the above data is reportedly available in raw, exportable format. For free.
Keeping with the mantra of transparent and open data all of the maps can be exported as KML plus you can click the hyperlink to Maker and click details to get the raw data for any of the maps.
Aside from the map itself and its time-lapse nature, I like the slider bars associated with each map. Move the slider to define or refine data ranges and watch the map change. For instance, the map I generated above displays only states with a 5% and greater unemployment rate.
Cool. Looking forward to more open data (not just open source) visualization tools from Gorman’s shop and others.
Day 1171: Light Blogging Ahead
Today’s itinerary:
6:30 AM – Leave Milwaukee
10:30 AM – Arrive in New Orleans
5:30 PM – Leave New Orleans
9:30 PM – Arrive in Las Vegas for geophysics nerd con.
Despite membership in the Krewe de C.R.A.P.S., a gambler I am not. Vegas has something to offer me every night, regardless, including a Landmark Graphics 3D Visualization Solutions Showcase at Blue Martini, An Evening au Cirque at Mandalay Bay, a savage journey into the heart of the American desert and hanging out with friends from all over the world whom I haven’t seen in ages. Back in a week with more dice and pictures.
Day 1017: Rocks Don’t Talk Or Disappoint
A large part of my decision to become a geoscientist and not a physician, accountant or politician was the delicious prospect of not dealing with many people. I’m no misanthrope (ask anyone in my family or at work who has to put up with my incessant babbling thorough commentary), but give me a computer or a book and I’m gone. Hours upon hours go by while I swim through data, words and the mental caverns that spontaneously open and close during the journey.
That which we are capable of is a lot more interesting than this that we are capable of. Art, science, art meeting science are definitely worth meditating on more than the personally unsolvable problems of New Orleans, which new rung of hell, especially formed for him, will Karl Rove descend to or what sweet and merciful god would make the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education utter the words “That little baby born in the manger was the god that created the universe [thousands of years ago].”
So, I gleefully partake of and share the innovations, connections and progress that we humans make in our amazing and flawed capacity. Such a dichotomy of purpose always makes me wonder who we really are.
* Presenting the Star Trek Holodeck 1.0 (well, not really, but check it out, it’s 3D without all that currently comes in the way of visualizing in 3D!)
* Female friends often encourage me to take up knitting. My response is always, “What ever for?” Duh, topology, of course! New Math Tricks: Knitting and Crocheting
The math of handicraft was long dismissed as merely a cute trick or an inconsequential coincidence. Now, however, handicraft has begun to come into its own as a legitimate tool for mathematical research. This is especially true of knitting and crochet, which, thanks to the efforts of a new group of researchers, are now receiving a great deal of attention from the world of theoretical mathematics.
Go, professors, purl through the back loop of that Möbius strip … or something like that.
* The Zac Browser for autistic children. From a CBS News SciTech article:
… it greatly simplifies the experience of using a computer. It seals off most Web sites from view, to block violent, sexual or otherwise adult-themed material. Instead it presents a hand-picked slate of choices from free, public Web sites, with an emphasis on educational games, music, videos and visually entertaining images, like a virtual aquarium … It essentially takes over the computer and reduces the controls available for children like Zackary, who finds too many choices overwhelming.
* Finally, blogging is good for you. Scientific American says so. Actually, it’s good for the ill and recovering in need of a means of self-expression.
… Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.
There is no way in hell blogging improves sleep and boosts immune cell activity in this healthy individual.
The following sentence reminded me of what a blogosphere can be, what it was for many in the months immediately following Katrina and The Flood and how it can comfort, grow wonder and teach or devolve into a cesspool of unlistening, screeching self-righteousness. The choice is always ours.
… Whatever the underlying causes may be, people coping with cancer diagnoses and other serious conditions are increasingly seeking—and finding—solace in the blogosphere.