Pioneer Plaque: Sagan designed infographic
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Pioneer Plaque: Sagan designed infographic
If you're new here, you may want to first register and subscribe to the RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!The Carl Sagan-designed golden record (“Pioneer Plaque”) sent on 1970s Pioneer spacecraft is today considered an infographic. (An infographic intended to be read by space aliens. Which means that, continuing our IG series on data visualization, you can’t get much more far out that this visual.) The golden-plated engraving is designed to survive a billion years in space, quite a feet given that the Earth itself will be very different in a billion years (and was extremely different 1 billion years ago). The Pioneer Plaque infographic was designed by Carl Sagan and drawn by Sagan’s then wife, an artist. It includes anatomically-correct drawings of humans (cropped-off due to IG community standards where this was originally published :). For this, Sagan was accused of sending smut into interstellar space. Most of the information in the Pioneer Plaque references the atomic timing of a hydrogen, used elsewhere as a unit of measurement (the same throughout space, so the same to space aliens).… Read the restQuasar Gravity Lenses, or 1TB/day Digital Sky Survey
These are quasar gravity lenses from the 1TB/day Sloan Digital Sky Survey begun back in 2000. Shown here are some cool-looking quasars that act as gravitational lenses, photographed as part of the project. Space is one application of big data and data science that produces pretty pictures. Back beginning in 2000, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey generated 1 Tb of data per day imaging the sky. These days, big box stores seem to hand out larger drives as party favors, but 1TB of daily data was a lot to keep track of back in 2000. New technologies were needed to process all of this data at the time (think robotic computer tape jukeboxes. They were likely digital linear tapes, but anyone remember DATs, which used to be used for data archival AND music recorders? How quaint. Incidentally, a DAT tape was ‘just like a VCR’ in that it used a helical scan mechanism to reduce the length of tape.… Read the restWolfram mathematica: data visualization example
This is example of visualization using Wolfram Mathematica, a commercial software package. We’ve previously discussed some of Wolfram’s other products and ideas in an earlier post on digital physics and cosmology as well as in our posts on IBM Watson. One of the reasons that data visualization remains something of a black art is that there are so many data visualization packages out there. Each package has its strength in a few kinds of plots or types of visualizations. Some of the better packages are commercial (and, unfortunately, not necessarily inexpensive). The high prices mean the experience of any practitioner is likely to be limited to a few commercial visualization packages over the course of a career (since most sites will only license a few packages). Open source data visualization packages are therefore very powerful, since they potentially combine the best of free tools. There are very good free tools out there.… Read the restMulticolor 3D scatterplot: traditional data visualization
Traditional data visualization: this is a multicolor scatterplot done at LLNL (Lawrence Livermore National Labs) near Berkeley, CA using the free, open source software package they developed (VisIT). VisIt can perform various transformations to attempt to visualize multi-dimensional data, including phase-space renderings and applying glyphs to show higher dimensions. The 3D scatterplot visualization here seems to be a more traditional 3D scatterplot, with color used to visualize a fourth dimension of data. (There are visualization techniques to attempt to show more than four dimensions, although your results may vary. Our earlier post showing a streamgraph shows one of these methods, although there are more. Conveying complex information in a meaningful way using tools like a multicolor 3D scatterplot is as much art as science, as you can see.) A version of this article originally appeared as a photo post on our Instagram feed. (more…)… Read the restNapoleon in Russia: Classic 19th Century Infographic
This is an amazing, classic 1869 French infographic and data visualization on Napoleon’s disastrous 1812-13 Russia campaign. Although it does not entirely fit into an Instagram square (this was originally published on IG), the very thick line in color is the Emperor of France’s army arriving. The extremely thin black lines are the surviving retreating troops staggering back home from Moscow. Frost bite and the bitter Russian winter were a major factor contributing to the heavy losses. (The temperature is shown in the bottom of the chart in Celsius, and you can see the impact of lower temperatures on the thinning black line. Had wind chills been understood in 1869, an even more dramatic correlation might have been possible.) This infographic is successful because it succinctly captures a great deal of information into a single figure. In addition to showing Napoleon’s dwindling troop strengths at various points in the campaign, a rough sense of chronology, geography (town names) and troop movements is given, together with the environmental conditions that contributed to the disaster. … Read the restRecent Comments
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