pouët.net

This thread is about cool data & information visualizations and visual explanations. I think it's a very interesting topic and often very demoish, too -- so I wonder if other people here feel the same.

I'll start with some cool Viz-Videos on Youtube:


A shortfilm about information
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WytNkw1xOIc&fmt=18
A shortfilm about architecture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E55OcGB0L8o&fmt=18


Great music video from Royksopp (unfortunately bad video quality though)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xhdy9zBEws&fmt=18


GOOD: Satellites
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDRxvFYNDmc&fmt=18


Typophile Film Fest 4 (Opening Credits)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHPvHwqmPFk&fmt=18


Le Grand Content
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_8Oqxk-wEo&fmt=18


The Crisis of Credit Visualized - Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0zEXdDO5JU&fmt=18
The Crisis of Credit Visualized - Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhDkZjKBEw&fmt=18

i'm a regular reader of www.infosthetics.com

Me too. I guess I found most if not all of those videos through links from infosthetics :-)

i've been wondering a lot about this, see, it's not the data visualization that makes those videos look great - and a recent post about that obfuscated health care diagram proves that - it's the sense of design and aesthetics. you can have the most amazing idea to visualize data and still not get anywhere unless you have a sense of color/proportion/fonts/etc.

excellent post, jua. thanks for sharing !

Have a look at Golan Levin's stuff, too.

http://www.presentationzen.com/ blog by garr reynolds, a presentation guru and iirc he helps steve jobs with his keynotes among others..

What Gargaj said - great resource!
Nice thread.

this one?
Du bist Terrorist

http://www.datavisualization.ch/
http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/

Check this: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

also, Code Swarm: http://vis.cs.ucdavis.edu/~ogawa/codeswarm/

Python video

source code: http://code.google.com/p/codeswarm/

I used to be very interested in data visualization, and still is to some extent, however some aspects of it strike me as very aesthetized and quite dishonest.

Quite often what is being claimed is that it teaches and shows what's "hidden in the data."

This is kind of silly for many reasons. The first one is that considers data as an object of study in itself, forgetting that data is rarely raw, and often tied to a particular model/theory. It will likely not be able to reveal a new theory.

The second problem I have with it is that it seems to claim that truth, when looked at with a particular angle will be manifest and appear to us as such. (An essentialist position) I.e. not very compatible with the scientific process and the idea of testing truth via emprical means.

In summary I like data visualization first for purely aesthetical reasons, but I am kind of uncomfortable when it's really about aesthetics claiming to be substance.

And can recommend strongly Hans Rosling's TED presentation that broderick posted. It's less aesthetized and the presentation is entertaining and quite an eye opener.

I like diagrams, schematics, maps. They hold no claim of revealing the truth, their goal is to communicate a design so they can be beautiful in themselves.

Here the data IS the object.

But that's maybe for another topic, where we would mention http://dataisnature.com/.

@broderick : I LOVE YOU

I've seen this talk once before, and could not find it anymore... THANK YOU

www.chrisjordan.com

knos: http://dataisnature.com/ rules *goes and checke the updates*
cxnull: you're welcome :)

jua, you might like this ( bad audio quality, though :/) Autechre - Pir ('99)

dataisnature si teh luv

some nice stuff here

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/
http://www.aaronkoblin.com/

Chris Jordan.. his work is really amazing.

This tool has been quite useful for me... Nice looking geographical statistics in a few clicks

That's why I added the term "visual explanations" to my original posting, it's something I probably like even more than just data graphs. It's not just about data itself but also about relations between things and visualising abstract concepts. Aesthetics plays an important role, I think it kind of guides the viewer into taking a closer look instead of just dismissing it.

Personally I really like the approach of minimalism and simplicty as introduced in the book "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" by Edward Tufte, which is a fantastic book by the way. The title doesn't really sound like it, but it's really interesting, with many examples of bad data presentation and how to turn it into good data presentation.


The outcome of a data visualisation is of course dependant on the views of its creator. There are so many tricks to manipulate and distort graphs and stuff (Tufte's book which I referred to above contains various examples of manipulative graphs), but I guess abuse of statistics is as old as stastitics itself.
I do think it's possible to use it in a good way, to make data and relations more understandable. The problem is, often people don't really want that, they just want to prove whatever they think is right, and then they distort the graphs until it shows whatever they like. And then of course there's the group of people who just want to make something that looks nice, looks like it has some meaning in it but actually it doesn't.

Yes, what I like is the use of graphics and metaphors to make highly abstract things more "touchable", more intuitive. "Revealing truth" is a different thing, just drawing some things on a graph paper doesn't necessarily reveal anything -- it can however (although it might be senseless stuff like "Global Warming vs. Number of Pirates" ;-).


That's an interesting video. It's a bit different from the "visual explanation" thing though since its meaning leaves much room for interpretation... but I really like it, reminds me a little of the Assembly04 Inivitaion from Moppi with the way stuff is generated on a surface with the camera moving around...

Thanks for all the other links, plenty of stuff to look into.. :-)