Tag: network

2008 – Kids Reconstruct Harry Potter's Social Network

At the 2008 science fair (fête de la science), the Aviz group had kids build physical node-link diagrams of Harry Potter's social network using magnets and rubber bands. Source: Aviz. http://www.aviz.fr/old/fetedelascience08/

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: education, hand-built, network, participatory, rearrangeable


2010 – Retweet Ripples

Interpreting tweets as droplets on an imaginary fluid surface, Karsten Schmidt and his colleagues created a 3D printed abstract visualization of tweets and their retweets forming ripple patterns. The visualization is created by first executing a Twitter search (here: "Justin Bieber") to create the initial droplets shown in the center of each ring. For each search result they then recursively executed secondary Twitter searches for retweets to create more droplets and used these to form […]

Added by: Karsten Schmidt. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: 3D print, cluster, network, twitter


2011 – Digital Arab Spring

Twitter-networks were used by the citizens of the North African states to communicate and organize during the Arab Spring. The virtuality of a computer network becomes tactile and palpable here, like the virtual organization led to actual protests in the streets. The purpose of this data visualisation is to illustrate a magazine-cover and spread and was created as part of an academic graphic design programme. Sources: René Rieger, Digital Arab Spring. Gestalten Blackboard entry (2012).

Added by: René Rieger. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: citizen infrastructures, network, textile, twitter


2013 – Programmable Matter Stars in a Movie

Programmable matter with levitation capabilities is a key visual element in the 2013 movie Man of Steel. The (slowed down) segment above reveals what appears to be a 3D node-link diagram. This display technology is employed by an advanced civilization on Krypton and is referred to as Liquid Geometry or Liquid Geo by the movie team. Visual effects supervisor Dan Lemmon explains that it consists in: a bunch of silver beads that are suspended through a magnetic field, and the machine is able to […]

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Enabling technology  Tags: movie, network, pop culture, programmable matter, sci-fi


2013 – Loci: 3D Printed Sculptures of Your Flights

Loci by Andrew Spitz lets you easily create physical 3d arc diagrams based on your past flights, and may be soon be available through an iphone app. Source: Andrew Spitz (2013) Loci - 3D Printed Sculptures of Your Flights.



2013 – 3D Social Networks

Jeff Hemsley from Syracuse University explains how to create solid models of social networks using the statistical package R and a 3D printer. 3D node-link diagrams have been explored for a while due to their potential benefits. One is that any node-link diagram can be laid out in 3D without any link crossing. Some studies have also shown that in some cases 3D node-link diagrams are easier to read than 2D ones. However, 3D visualizations are generally hard to navigate and to perceive on regular […]

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: Jeff Hemsley. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: 3d printing, digital fabrication, network, social network


2013 – Network of the German Civil Code

A room-filling visualization by Oliver Bieh-Zimmert (Visual Telling) that illustrates the patterns of references within the German civil code. Each red thread stands for a reference to another paragraph. Source: you can find more info and images on the visual telling website.

Added by: Yvonne Jansen, sent by: Pierre Dragicevic - Benjamin Bach. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: network, room-sized, walkable


2015 – Interregional Merchandise Trade

Trade data often show a network of money flows. Spreadsheets of such data are difficult to remember and hardly find their way to the long-term memory. The chosen intra- and intraregional WTO data of 2012 have been modeled and printed as a 3D data sculpture. It offers some fresh insights on flows, intraregional trade sizes, has some haptic quality and can be put on the table to accompany presentations and debates. Source: Volker Schweisfurth / MeliesArt (2015) Trade Data Materialized.

Added by: Volker Schweisfurth. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: 3d printing, network, trade, WTO


2016 – Woven Chronicles

Woven Chronicle is a cartographic wall drawing that, in the artist’s words, represents “the global flows and movements of travelers, migrants, and labor.” Kallat uses electrical wires—some of which are twisted to resemble barbed wire—to create the lines, which are based on her meticulous research of transnational flows. Wire is an evocative and contradictory material: it operates as both a conduit of electricity, used to connect people across vast distances, and as a weaponized obstacle, such […]

Added by: Santiago Ortiz. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: art, cartographic, migration, network, wires


2016 – Walkable Collaboration Network

Designer Dario Rodighiero created a large (15x15m) walkable visualization showing scientific relationships between researchers and laboratories at the ENAC school of EPFL in Switzerland. The visualization was printed on tarpaulin, a heavy covering employed for trucks. Two years before, Dario created a coauthorship network visualization for the Digital Humanities 2014 conference. He initially considered showing a large poster, but since sticking posters was not allowed at the conference center, […]

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: Benjamin Bach. Category: Uncertain  Tags: collaboration, network, walkable


2018 – Solving the Shortest Route Problem with a 3D Printer

Christian Freksa, a professor of Cognitive Systems at the Department of Informatics at the University of Bremen, shows how a shortest route can be computed by 3D-printing the route network using flexible material, and then pulling apart the start and end nodes. The tight portion of the network immediately gives the shortest route. The right image shows an earlier version using strings. This idea was first proposed by mathematician George Minty in 1957, in a short letter to the editor of the […]

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: Barbara Tversky. Category: Physical model  Tags: 3d printing, network, physical computation, route