the "worldmapper" metaphor, originally first posted on infosthetics.com in March 2006, is slowly but surely taking over the world. its success is remarkable, as it does not happen often that a new visualization method is taken over by the popular press. the stacked flow chart as a listening history & its many reincarnations such as Lastgraph or as newspaper infographic comes closes, but still has a long way to go.

what was first featured in newspapers & magazines from Australia to the UK, from Bulletin of the World Health Organization to the National Geographic & everything inbetween, now has become an independent book annex Atlas, titled "Atlas of the Real World".

it should be available at your local book shop or order it now at amazon.com.

[link: worldmapper.org|via creativereview.co.uk]

see also US election cartogram

a lovely song titled "I Love Charts", from the SID The Science Kid episode "The Sticker Chart."

one can sing along (it is quite a sticky melody) with Teacher Susie's song about how charts are "handy dandy" scientific tools! charts can be used to compare & contrast data & to visualize the big picture during your investigations. "from weekly weather charts to pie charts to bar graphs, charts totally rule!"

(I guess that PBS Science Kid will now become known at introduction information visualization lectures worldwide)

[link: pbskids.org|via swissmiss.com & digitalroam.typepad.com]

if you like this, you will also like Sesame Street visual thinking.

a physical map representing the values for the 5 water footprint components per capita of 132 countries. symbols of different sizes (heights?) placed within a geographical world diagram, based on a hexagonal grid, denote a quantifiable value. the grid metaphor of "1 country = 1 inhabitant = 1 unit grid" is used to avoid overlapping & differences in visual densities.

[link: web.me.com & flickr.com|thnkx Tim]

see also water footprint infographical poster.

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.

[link: synesketch.krcadinac.com]

a couple of interactive data visualization that illustrate the structure & content of the past US presidential debates. a "Debate Timeline" depicts the discussion by whom is talking (i.e. question, moderator, McCain or Obama) & the subject, while a treemap shows the main keywords & who mentioned them most. all information is also linked to a textual transcript & video excerpts.

[link: debatehub.c-span.org (timeline) & debatehub.c-span.org (treemap)|thnkx Joe]

a truly impressive 5-min infographic movie about the roots of the Middle-East conflict. slightly reminiscent of the opening sequence of the movie The Kingdom (its offline at YouTube, but still accessible on Yahoo movies), the goal is to show that "education & learning may also have a 'cool look'. this new look often reminds the viewer more of a TV music video than that of a matter-of-fact history lesson." if all news would be presented this interestingly...

[link: vimeo.com & thelager.de (author blog)|thnkx Martin]

a simple visualization metaphor that represents different numerical "signals" as colors mapped on a spiral. the signals include: the number of divisors, prime numbers, the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the last 10 eyars & the temperature variation over the last 422,000 years..

[link: bestiario.org|thnkx Jose]

an embeddable, interactive visualization widget that provides an overview of the predicted outcome of the upcoming US presidential elections. rows depict the results as reported from different news agencies, such as the Washington Post, The New York Times or CNN, while the columns represent the different US states, with their width according to the number of votes. the swing states, & in particular the lack of consensus among the news agencies, can be easily discerned in the middle of the graph.

[link: thetakeaway.org]

UPDATE
see also Forest & the Trees Election Center.

an infographic movie illustrating a detailed break down of the price tag of the Iraq war conflict, from the current debts to the unseen costs for many years to come. the data is based on the book The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.

[link: threetrilliondollarwar.org & good.is (high-rez version)]

several online information graphics that illustrate the causes or relative dimensions of the ongoing credit crisis. while there are plenty of stock market graphs out there, which ones attempt to communicate the mechanics or meaning behind the current crisis? & which ones did I miss?

. A Year of Heavy Losses (treemap) [nytimes.com]
. The Downturn in Facts and Figures (collection) [bbc.co.uk]
. How a Market Crisis Unfolded (event timeline) [nytimes.com]
. The Finance Crisis (graphs) [nytimes.com]
. Business Knowledge Maps (network maps) [newsvisual.com]
. Crunched by the Credit Crisis (bubble graph) [portfolio.com]
. The New Global Wealth Machine (relational chart) [blogs.nytimes.com]
. Headlines as Tag Cloud [Wordnews]
. Map of the Market (blood red treemap) [smartmoney.com]

UPDATE
. History of U.S. Gov't Bailouts (bubble graph) [propublica.org]

an online information dashboard for the Indianopolis Museum of Art, which attempts to measure & visualize various aspects of the museum's performance. the goal of this dashboard is to seek to quantify & report out on areas of activity of general interest to museum observers & to particular interest to museum studies specialists, colleagues & patrons. tracked data attributes include "Fans on Facebook", "KWh per Day Energy Consumption" & "Number of Art Works on Loan".

[link: imamuseum.or|via serialconsign.com]

a network visualization for the berkman@10 conference organized by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. the interface, based on bestario's 6pli system, attempts to connect online content related by similar tags but originating from different media, including blog posts, tweets, youtube videos, flickr images & raw urls. the interface "...is a project within which the aesthetics of informatics are carried towards overthrowing the scroll/print regime in digital culture."

"the need has emerged for a space where one can judged the interconnectedness of data, and simultaneously engage the individual data elements. it is a new way of seeing information, one that situates the view of the data/media within context before providing it individually."

[links: bestiario.org & thames2thayer.com & law.harvard.edu & everythingismiscellaneous.com]

[link: ffffound.com & logicnest.com & adarena.net|thnkx Martin]

yesterday, the 2008 Visualization Challenge winners, organized by the National Science Foundation (NSF) along with the journal Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), have been announced.

one can find plenty of press releases & online summaries (see some links below), inclusive of yesterday's NSF Press Release somehow pointing to the last(!) year's winners for "more information". however, there are almost no visuals beyond thumbnails, let alone a collection of links towards the works or their authors. blessed with a University-sponsored subscription to Science Magazine, here is at least a bit more information.

the most notable "Honorable Mention" is that of Chris Harrison's & Christoph Römhild's Visualizing the Bible, previously posted on infosthetics. in fact, Harrison's work has been featured frequently on this blog. strangely enough, this entry seems to be the sole "data visualization", that is a representation of abstract, non-physical information (versus the depiction of physical artifacts).

the category "Informational Graphics" is blessed with an honorable mention for the work "Stream Micro-Ecology: Life in a Biofilm" from Andrew Dopheide & Gillian Lewis, showing the science of slime by magnifying some primary biofilm dwellers such as algae, bacteria, protozoa, cyanobacteria, fungi & viruses. some extensive Googling resulted in a website called streambiofilm.org.nz, which I suppose is closely related.

the winner of "Informational Graphics" is "Mad Hatter's Tea" from Alice's Adventures in a Microscopic Wonderland, created by Concise Image Studios. the infographic shows 3 beetles sipping tea, inspired by the story Alice in Wonderland, set in a field of crystallized vitamin C while aphids fly overhead.

one seemingly intriguing Honorable Mention is titled "Smarter than the Worm" from Mirjam Kaplow & Katharina Strohmeier. it illustrates the concept behind computer viruses & worms by a visual story depicting gates of a fortress city, where a guard examines each visitor before granting them access. from the 2 available stills, the movie looks quite poetic.

lastly, the only available link points to Exploring Life's Origins, an Honorable Mention in Interactive Media. biochemist Janet Iwasa illustrates how the first cells may have formed & operated on a molecular level.

going through this challenge has been a frustrating experience, desperately searching for any visuals or video sources of an inherently visual medium. I can only hope that the list will be updated with links to online resources pointing to the works or authors, & secondly, that the works will be documented on easily accessible project websites, or why not, posted on Flickr or YouTube, bringing them to the masses where they belong.

[link: nsf.gov & eurekalert.org & sciencemag.org]

see also the 2007 & 2006 winners.

an original way of gaining information from the public through a participative, physical data visualization. a row of 5 large perspex cylinders act as a series of bar charts, each filled with a different colored badge featuring a statement about how passers-by answer a specific question, such as how they may or may not spend their time or ‘what did you do last week?’. as anonymous participants remove & keep badges the levels in the cylinders drop, producing an instant reflection of what are the most & least popular statements. in addition, alongside the tubes are postcards asking visitors to predict the levels in the tubes on a future date.

see also physical bar chart table & the (edible) bean counter.

[link: luckimbell.com & designleadership.blogspot.com (blog) daytodaydata.com]

a movie about "why we drink", filled with free associations, ranging from hamsters, goldfish & puppies over taxes, spam & death to the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus & the Tooth Fairy. this "association-chain-massacre" movie seems to be a complete rehash/remake of the questions about life movie.

[link: current.com]

a website dedicated to the tracking of political news during the last 100 days before the 2008 US General Election. the simple frequency graph represents the number of references to Obama vs McCain mentioned in recent news articles by day, quite similar to a traditional population pyramid.

[link: everymomentnow.com]

a large collection of humorist graphs, ranging from "Amount of Time Spent Online" over "The Fatter your Roommate is" to "Reality by Height".

[link: collegehumor.com]

see also:
- circles emanating from red dot
- visual overview of your life
- song charts
- rap songs graphs
- the 10 funniest charts & graphs
- indexed doodle graphs
- music concert graphs
- personal pie charts
- graphs for flirting

a visual overview of one's typical life, with each 'blob' representing one month sequentially from left-to-right, from top-to-bottom. a blob's color delimits specific life milestones of comparable or average people, such as "Einstein publishes paper on special relativity on this age" or "average age of first time grandparent".

[link: abstrusegoose.com]

infosthetics will be presenting at 2 festivals in the next week. on Monday September 15, I will present at C.STEM Breeding Objects in Torino (Italy), which focuses on a selection of visionary projects anticipating future developments in design process & technologies. on Saturday 20 September, more info-aesthetic wonders can be admired at the New Media Meeting in Norrköping (Sweden), which explored the visionary digital landscapes of playful creativity. both events are packed with presentations of impressive guest speakers, artists & projects.

I really hope to see you there if you happen to be in the neighborhood, & look forward to any tips you might have about "must see" places in and around those places!

(now off to the airport)