Gallery of Physical Visualizations
and Related Artifacts
This is a chronological list of physical visualizations and related artifacts, maintained by Pierre Dragicevic and Yvonne Jansen. Thanks to our contributors. Feel free to post a general comment or if you know of another interesting physical visualization, please submit it!  
This list currently has 359 entries. See recent additions. You can also get notified of new entries through Twitter.
  
5500 BC – Mesopotamian Clay Tokens
2600 BC – Quipus
500 BC – Pebble Voting
1862 – Marshall Islands Stick Charts
1871 – Thermodynamic Surfaces
1890 – Polynesian Genealogical Instrument
1898 – Tallies Used as Social Displays on Pacific...
1898 – Crookes’ Vis Generatrix
1900 – Pearson and Lee’s Height Correlation...
1901 – Davenport’s Physical Distributions
1907 – Pin Maps
1913 – Frankfurt Streetcar Load
1914 – Solid 3D Curves for Engineering
1915 – Wire Models of Factory Worker Movements
1920 – Yakama Time Ball
1926 – Karsten’s Tridimensional Chart
1933 – IBM’s Cosmograph
1935 – 3D Visualizations of Power Consumption
1939 – Map of Great Britain’s Marine Trade
1940s – Stedman’s 3D Periodic Table
1941 – Traffic Flow Profiles of the Interregional...
1945 – Electron Density Map and Molecular Model...
1947 – Dorothy Hodgkin’s Electron Density...
1951 – Electricity Generated or Demanded
1957 – Proteine Visualizations
1960 – 3D Spectrogram
1965 – Stop Motion Animation of Physical 3D Map
1968 – Jacques Bertin’s Reorderable...
1970 – 3D Sankey Diagram
1970 – MoMA Poll: Participatory Bar Chart
1973 – Mazamet Ville Morte
1985 – Using the Physical to Explain the Virtual
1987 – All the Submarines of the United States of...
1991 – Münster Congestion Visualization
1992 – Tactile Infographics
1992 – Durrell Bishop’s Marble Answering...
1993 – Slumber: Brainwave Weaving
1995 – Loren Madsen’s Early Data...
1995 – San Diego TeleManufacturing Facility
1996 – Ned Kahn’s Wind-Visualizing Facades
2002 – Bathsheba Grossman’s Crystal...
2003 – Solid Terrain Model with Airplane Trajectory
2003 – Time Pieces: Physical Space-Time Cubes
2003 – Mount Fear: Elevation Map of Crime Rates
2004 – Cylinder: Early Sound Sculpture
2004 – Full-Color 3D-Printed Scientific...
2004 – Scripps’ Molecule Models
2004 – Of All the People in All the World: Stats with...
2004 – Worry (Prayer) Beads
2005 – Time-Evolving Scatterplot
2006 – Inverted Participatory Bar Charts
2006 – Nathalie Miebach’s Woven Sculptures
2006 – RoomQuake: Earthquake Visualization for...
2007 – Global Cities: Elevation Maps of City...
2007 – Explosion of Sound Sculptures
2007 – Wable: Web Behavior Shown with a...
2007 – Garden of Eden
2008 – Kids Reconstruct Harry Potter’s...
2008 – Scientific Visualization in Crystal
2008 – Andreas Fischers’ Data Sculptures
2008 – Justin Stewart’s Data Sculptures
2008 – Rearrangeable Wooden Model of Brain...
2008 – Activity Logging with LEGO Bricks
2008 – Bug Tracking with LEGO Bricks
2008 – Joshua Callaghan’s Physical Charts
2008 – Psychogeographical Mapping: Travel...
2008 – 100% City
2009 – Form Follows Data: Tableware
2009 – In-Formed: More Data-Driven Tableware
2009 – Mitchell Whitelaw’s Weather...
2009 – DataMorphose: Animated Sails
2009 – Pulse: Animated Heart Shows Sentiments
2009 – Virtual Gravity: Giving Physical Weight to...
2009 – Poly: Physical Bar Chart Showing Online...
2009 – Centograph: Dynamic Bar Charts Show...
2009 – Leithinger’s Interactive Shape...
2009 – Marcovici’s Single-Datum...
2009 – Windcuts: Wind Travels Captured on Wood
2009 – Federal Budget Explained with 10,000...
2009 – How Much Sugar do you Consume?
2010 – Data Sculptures in Class
2010 – Relational Ornaments: Networks Shown...
2010 – Keyboard Frequency Sculpture
2010 – Limbique: Brain Slices
2010 – Thematic Maps of Germany
2010 – Hans Rosling Adopts Physical...
2010 – Dynamic Bar Chart to Visualize One’s...
2010 – eCLOUD & airFIELD: Ambient Airport...
2010 – Dust Serenade: Sound Waves Materialized
2010 – Quipu of the Periodic Table
2010 – Retweet Ripples
2010 – Cookbook Arranges Ingredients into...
2010 – Computer Glitches as 3D Objects
2010 – and Counting… Tattoo of War...
2011 – From Over Here: News Trends
2011 – LEGO Prism Maps
2011 – Tōhoku Japanese Earthquake Sculpture
2011 – DIY United States Electoral Vote Map
2011 – Can We Keep Up: Sponges Show Domestic...
2011 – DataCoaster: Data-Driven Toys
2011 – Laser-Cut Time Series
2011 – Adrien Segal’s Data Furniture
2011 – Warning: Real Time Global Air Quality...
2011 – Stephen Barrass’ Physical Data...
2011 – Jose Duarte’s Handmade...
2011 – Manually Animated Graph of Scientific Data
2011 – Blip: A Year of Travel
2011 – Sleep Patterns
2011 – Ursus Wehrli’s Art of Clean Up
2011 – Digital Arab Spring
2012 – General Motors’ 3D LEGO...
2012 – Thesis LEGO Board
2012 – Meshu.io: Data Jewellery you can Order...
2012 – Matthijs Klip’s Data Sculptures
2012 – Putting Physical Visualizations to the Test
2012 – Rearrangeable 3D Bar Chart
2012 – PARM: Static Terrain Models with...
2012 – Emoto: Projection Augmented Heatmaps of...
2012 – Dynamic Network Sculpture
2012 – Chaotic Flow: Abstract Flow Visualization of...
2012 – Data Cuisine
2012 – Grand Old Party: Political Satire
2012 – Google Eye: Radial Visualization of Page...
2012 – Pulse: Tangible Line Graph
2012 – Poland Budget Presented with LEGO...
2012 – Bit Planner: LEGO calendar
2012 – Point Cloud: A Dynamic Weather Sculpture
2012 – What made me
2012 – Stop & Frisk: Physical Data Filtering
2013 – Solid Statistics
2013 – Network of the German Civil Code
2013 – NYC High School Dropouts
2013 – Layered 2D Plots
2013 – Season in Review: iPad + Physical Charts...
2013 – SweatAtoms: Physical Activity Sculptures
2013 – Behavioral Landscapes
2013 – Line Charts of Cortisol Levels
2013 – Robot Arranges 8,000 Nails Into a Data...
2013 – Very Pointy Elevation Map
2013 – Pneumatic Charts
2013 – Data Sculpture of Chicken Inbreeding
2013 – 3D Social Networks
2013 – A Snow Chart of Mobility in Science
2013 – Turning Facebook Connections into Data...
2013 – Loci: 3D Printed Sculptures of Your Flights
2013 – Examined Life: Giving Shape to Activities
2013 – Punchcard Economy: Data Knitting
2013 – Population Density Emerging from Walls
2013 – Walkable Age Pyramid
2013 – Doug McCune’s Physical Maps
2013 – Releases
2013 – Temperature Scarves and Afghans
2013 – Pop-Up Infographics
2013 – Tidal Memory
2014 – People Wood: Data Sculpture of...
2014 – Water Works: Maps of the San Francisco...
2014 – Blaue Blumen: Handcrafted Offline Data...
2014 – Building Visualizations with Tokens
2014 – 888,246 Ceramic Poppies to Commemorate...
2014 – Data Crystals: Conglomerated World Stats
2014 – Dynamic Physical Charts Display...
2014 – Cosmos: Carbon Exchange Captured in a...
2014 – Data Clothing: Dresses Show Air Pollution
2014 – Data Strings: Physical Parallel Coordinates
2014 – Drip-By-Tweet: Each Vote is a Drop
2014 – Physical Visual Sedimentation
2014 – DIY Bertin Matrix
2014 – District 5: Tube Charts Reveal Decline in...
2014 – Data Storytelling with LEGOs
2014 – Silver Ring Shaped by DNA Profile
2014 – x.pose: a Wearable Dynamic Data...
2014 – #Good vs. #Evil
2014 – Sound Bites
2014 – Rearrangeable Display of Ice Data
2014 – Lego Senate
2014 – Data Sculpture in the White House
2014 – 3D Interest Rate Surface
2015 – Physical Customer Satisfaction Survey
2015 – Data Necklace of Good Night SMS
2015 – Touching Air: Necklace Shows Air Pollution
2015 – Sicherheit: Switzerland’s Money in...
2015 – Interregional Merchandise Trade
2015 – Physical Weather Display
2015 – London Eye Chart: A 135m Tall Donut Chart
2015 – Multivariate Beer
2015 – 3D Paper Model of Shrinking Aral Sea
2015 – Dan Gilbert’s TV Ads
2015 – Canadian Federal Election Explained with...
2015 – U.S. Cost of Political Campaigns
2015 – Passim: Visual Reconceptualisation of...
2015 – Inequalities Quipu
2015 – Jller: A Robot Rearranges Pebbles by...
2015 – Participatory Representation of Happiness
2015 – Dataseeds: Flying Data
2015 – Summer in the City
2015 – U.S. Unemployment Rate 1948-2015
2015 – Life in Clay: Sharing Memories through...
2015 – Wage Islands
2016 – Central Park NYC Temperatures
2016 – Podium: Physical Competition Monitor
2016 – Motus Forma: People’s Motions in a...
2016 – FizViz: A Wall-Mounted Data Gauge
2016 – Actuated Prism Map of Italy
2016 – Housing Prices Ripping San Francisco...
2016 – Dataponics: Human-Vegetal Play
2016 – Cairn: Situated Data Collection and...
2016 – Thoughtforms: 3D-Printed Thoughts
2016 – Accomplishments
2017 – Hand-Crafted Magazine Infographics
2017 – EuroGums: Edible Population Pyramids
2017 – Wearable Self
2017 – Coral Reefs
2017 – Damião’s Dataphys Project
2017 – Animals Tracking
2017 – CO2 Emissions Shown with Balloons
2017 – Are you Sure you Want to Smoke?
2017 – The All Too Evident Ashtray
2017 – Green Berlin
2017 – Gravity Wave Spectrogram – LIGO
2017 – Data Sculpture of Latin American...
2017 – Participatory Matrix and Parallel...
2017 – Yellow Dust: Making Visible Particulate...
2017 – CNC-Milled Wood Visualization of a...
2018 – Steven Pinker explains Global Life...
2018 – The Long Run: Marble Runs Convey Cost of...
2018 – ON BRINK: Live Physicalization of the...
2018 – Living Map: Precipitation Visualized with...
2018 – Inequality in Chile Represented with LEGO...
2018 – Phylogenetic Tree with Real Specimens
2018 – Anthropocene Footprints
2018 – DayDohViz: Data Visualizations made with...
2018 – Traveling Datavis Game
2018 – CairnFORM: a Physical Ring Chart Showing...
2018 – Harassment Plants
2018 – The 20 Year Gap
2019 – Self Knitted Scarf of Train Delays
2019 – New Worry Beads: Deaths from Terrorism
2019 – Hostile Terrain 94: Deaths at the US/Mexico...
2019 – Sleep Blanket
2019 – Tattoo Biosensors
2019 – Anamorphic Data Spatialization
2019 – Physicalizing Cardiac Blood Flow Data
2019 – Perpetual Plastic
2019 – Data Earrings of Country Happiness
2019 – Physical Violin Plot
2019 – Data Beyond Vision: Physicalizing...
2020 – COVID-19 Deaths as Nails
Get notified of new posts: 
twitter
The views expressed on this page are not necessarily the views of the curators and of their respective institutions. This collection is CC-BY-SA. If you reuse or adapt it, please reference this page. See BibTeX for citing.