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Topic: Community visualization (Read 968 times) |
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fli
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Community visualization
« on: May 29th, 2003, 10:24am » |
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I'm just starting to try visualizing community activity. This applet tries to show how members encounter each other over time, based on being captured in photographs:
http://conncomm.interaction-ivrea.it:8080/theoryengine/code/encounters/
Infoviz, graphic design, etc are all very new for me, so don't expect anything mindblowing here .
But I've set up a fairly robust platform in which I can query the contents of the community from Java applets, so I hope it will be getting easier for me to explore and generate new visualizations over time...
Francis
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arielm
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Re: Community visualization
« Reply #1 on: May 29th, 2003, 11:37am » |
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hi francis,
i like the concept of your "encounters" applet (and i'm interested in everything that relates to logs).
i would like to explore it further but i'm a bit lost with the interface... could you give a small brief on it?
thanks!
p.s: so you have Nathan Shedroff as a teacher? i think he rocks!
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Ariel Malka | www.chronotext.org
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fli
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Re: Community visualization
« Reply #2 on: May 29th, 2003, 1:30pm » |
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The applet is displaying a timeline starting from the upper left to the lower right. Pictures that the "subject" has been captured in are displayed as circular nodes on the timeline.
Other members of the community that have also been captured in the same pictures are represented by lines that intersect the picture nodes that they appear in.
The bar at the bottom also represents the timeline, with grey bars showing where in time pictures occur (darker bars mean more pictures).
Drag the handles at the ends of the timeline to "zoom" in and out of the timeline, and rollover the circular nodes to see a thumbnail of the photo. Click on a node to see the photo and all of its details in the website.
Francis
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arielm
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Re: Community visualization
« Reply #3 on: May 29th, 2003, 5:55pm » |
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ah, i'm starting to get it!..
nice concept (repeting myself
i have 2 comments (information design related):
- when rolling-over a node and a photo is displayed, you, and me (thanks to your "brief") understand that the "subject" must be in it: so you simply don't list his / her name under the photo... i guess it's not contributing to a better understanding of the system, but the contrary (i.e: i think the subject's name should be listed, with some visual effect that marks the specificity)
- regarding the 2 two timelines (the oblique one, and the bottom one): it's not obvious what is the direction of time, and in general, i think it would be helpfull to have the event's time-stamp indicated on the timelines...
one of the reasons i like such (chrono)logs is that at some point, you can take all the data and turn it to "time-based media":
i mean what if you had a little "deck" interface with "play", "forward", "rewind" buttons (for controlling time, of course) and you could just visualize the information as a story!
in the same direction of thought, you could control more than one "subject" with the same deck (providing that the "timebase" is the same for everybody): watching different stories in parallel, etc.
(hey, sorry for the long spam, i just can't help myself, turning everything into time-based-media!)
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Ariel Malka | www.chronotext.org
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fli
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Re: Community visualization
« Reply #4 on: May 29th, 2003, 6:26pm » |
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Hmm, adding more photos into the database have revealed more bugs in the applet, it's not quite working as it should.
I'll post again when it's working...
Francis
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fli
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Re: Community visualization
« Reply #6 on: May 31st, 2003, 4:04pm » |
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Ok, the "Encounters" applet is working again, let's hope it stays that way!
Thanks Ariel for your comments, they're very much along the lines that I've been thinking for the visualizations. I think as the amount of content continues to increase, constraining and controlling the range and playback over time will also become more significant.
I have to get back to writing the final paper, but I'll be working on the applets again soon after. I've also wanted to make the specific changes you suggested.
Thanks,
Francis
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madmerv
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Re: Community visualization
« Reply #7 on: Nov 26th, 2003, 8:11pm » |
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Where's "encounters"?
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forkinsocket
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Re: Community visualization
« Reply #8 on: Dec 9th, 2003, 6:34am » |
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francis. it occurs to me that the community activity data you collected in your thesis work could be useful to members of the processing community as a source of raw material to work from, as they make their own explorations in visualization.
1. is it possible for members of the processing community to develop their own applets for use on top of this data?
2. are you willing to release this data to the public? subtext: is this data considered the intellectual property of interaction design institute ivrea?
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