1660 – Galileo Thermometer

A Galileo thermometer consists of a set of floaters immersed in a clear liquid (typically ethanol) inside a sealed glass tube. Today a floater is typically a glass sphere containing a colored liquid and to which is attached a metallic temperature tag. The composition of a floater is irrelevant, its overall density just needs to be calibrated to a certain value and remain stable. Floaters being made of glass and metal, their volume - and therefore density - is largely unaffected by temperature. […]

A Galileo thermometer consists of a set of floaters immersed in a clear liquid (typically ethanol) inside a sealed glass tube. Today a floater is typically a glass sphere containing a colored liquid and to which is attached a metallic temperature tag. The composition of a floater is irrelevant, its overall density just needs to be calibrated to a certain value and remain stable. Floaters being made of glass and metal, their volume - and therefore density - is largely unaffected by temperature. But when temperature rises, the ethanol around expands significantly. When its density matches the density of a particular floater, that floater will move at the middle of the tube, thereby indicating the current temperature. The remaining floaters will move at the bottom or at the top. Despite its name, the Galileo thermometer was not invented by Italian physicist Galileo (1564−1642), but by the Florentine scientific society Accademia del Cimento two decades after his death (left image). The Accademia del Cimento was founded in 1657 by Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici (former student of Galileo) and his brother Prince Leopoldo, in order to attract scientists to Florence for mutual study. It was the first scientific organization founded for the sole purpose of making scientific experiments. Its motto was Probando e Reprobando, i.e., "testing and retesting". They created a number of scientific instruments before being demised in 1667. Galileo thermometers are now built and sold all over the world for decoration purposes (right image). Galileo did invent a thermoscope (a thermometer without a numeric scale) in the early 1600s, but it was very rudimentary, did not employ floaters, and was affected by atmospheric pressure. This instrument was an important invention but bore no resemblance to what is now called the Galileo thermometer. Nonetheless, it is clear that Galileo's inventions and writings greatly influenced the Academia del Cimento. Sources: Peter Loyson (2012) Galilean Thermometer Not So Galilean. Wikipedia article on the Galileo thermometer. Wikipedia article on Accademia del Cimento. Left image from the museo galileo website. Right image from Wikipedia.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Measuring instrument Tags: italy, science, thermometer

1750 – George Adams' Solid Geometry Models

During the 18th century, instrument maker George Adams built and sold solid 3D geometric models as educational complements to the 2D images found in Euclid's Elements of Geometry. As argued by a 18th-century author: It is almost as necessary as in mechanics, to exhibit the objects, whose qualities are to be taught; and to call in the joint assistance of the hands and eyes. According to the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, authors were already experimenting with paper models soon after […]

During the 18th century, instrument maker George Adams built and sold solid 3D geometric models as educational complements to the 2D images found in Euclid's Elements of Geometry. As argued by a 18th-century author: It is almost as necessary as in mechanics, to exhibit the objects, whose qualities are to be taught; and to call in the joint assistance of the hands and eyes. According to the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, authors were already experimenting with paper models soon after the very first English edition of Euclid in 1570. But in contrast with chemistry, the use of physical models has never become widespread in geometry. Sources: Mike Rich (2006) Wooden geometric models made by George Adams. Image by the Whipple Museum.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Physical model Tags: education, geometry, science, wooden

1887 – Marey's Movement Sculptures

Bronze sculpture showing the phases of the flight of birds, created by French scientist Étienne-Jules Marey in 1887 based on photographs. Étienne-Jules Marey was a pioneer in the study of dynamic phenomena and invented a variety of scientific and medical instruments, photography techniques, and temporal visualization methods. A wealth of information is available about him online. Sources: Russel Naughton (2007) Aviation and Aeromodeling History - Étienne-Jules Marey (1830 - 1904). Wikipedia […]

Bronze sculpture showing the phases of the flight of birds, created by French scientist Étienne-Jules Marey in 1887 based on photographs. Étienne-Jules Marey was a pioneer in the study of dynamic phenomena and invented a variety of scientific and medical instruments, photography techniques, and temporal visualization methods. A wealth of information is available about him online. Sources: Russel Naughton (2007) Aviation and Aeromodeling History - Étienne-Jules Marey (1830 - 1904). Wikipedia article on Etienne-Jules Marey. Marey (1890) Psychologie du mouvement - Le vol des oiseaux. Left image from www.histoire-image.org. Right image from Russell Naughton. Related: Also see our entry on Peter Jansen's movement sculptures, inspired by his work.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Physical model Tags: temporal data

2000 – Kanban Boards

A Kanban board is a task management tool where sticky notes representing work items are moved across a board to reflect their state of advancement. The simplest form has three states: to do, in progress, and done (left image). A Kanban board provides a visual overview over all work items that makes it possible to rapidly spot time management issues, such as too many items in progress. Although software versions exist, many people prefer Kanban boards to be physical. Several recent blog posts […]

A Kanban board is a task management tool where sticky notes representing work items are moved across a board to reflect their state of advancement. The simplest form has three states: to do, in progress, and done (left image). A Kanban board provides a visual overview over all work items that makes it possible to rapidly spot time management issues, such as too many items in progress. Although software versions exist, many people prefer Kanban boards to be physical. Several recent blog posts (links below) discuss the benefits of physical Kanban boards, e.g., they are 1) always available and visible, unavoidable; 2) flexible and expressive, easy to customize; 3) easy and engaging to use - moving items forward can be rewarding; 4) in teams, can promote engagement, encourage conversations, create a spirit of common purpose. Drawbacks include the absence of support for synchronization at a distance, history management, constraint enforcement, post-processing and calculations, and they only provide a finite working space. Hybrid solutions like JimFlow (2012) are commercialized that try to combine the best of both worlds. Hybrid boards (although not Kanban) have also been explored in the field of tangible user interfaces, e.g., by Jacob et al. (2002). Sources: Wikipedia article on the Kanban Board. Nilesh R Arora (2001) Kanban Guide - Demand Scheduling for Lean Manufacturing, p.11. Arnaldo Pellini (2011) Personal Kanban and two simple rules to manage knowledge work. Siddharta Govindaraj (2011) 5 Reasons Why Physical Boards Are Better Than Electronic Boards. Cheryl Hammond (2013) Kanban boards: physical or virtual? Patrick Wied (2014) Getting physical with Productivity - A simple, yet powerful approach. Left image by Patrick Wied. Right image by Chris Huffman.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Uncertain Tags: manual update, task management

2009 – Marcovici's Single-Datum Visualizations

Vienna artist Michael Marcovici created two physical visualizations that convey a single numerical value. The first one shows one billion dollar - the most expensive piece of art ever made, according to him (although these were actually miniature bills). The second one called Rolex Time Sand shows an entire lifetime worth of hourglass sand. For another single-datum physical visualization see our entry Ceramic Poppies to Commemorate Fallen Soldiers in WW1, and our entry on Chris Burden's […]

Vienna artist Michael Marcovici created two physical visualizations that convey a single numerical value. The first one shows one billion dollar - the most expensive piece of art ever made, according to him (although these were actually miniature bills). The second one called Rolex Time Sand shows an entire lifetime worth of hourglass sand. For another single-datum physical visualization see our entry Ceramic Poppies to Commemorate Fallen Soldiers in WW1, and our entry on Chris Burden's submarines (1989). Sources: Michael Marcovici via visualizing.org. The artpieces are undated but an online search bring back to 2009. http://memim.com/michael-marcovici.html Also see Fanny Chevalier and al's infovis article on visually conveying extreme magnitudes and unfamiliar units.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: concrete scale, large numbers, money, single-datum, time

2011 – Jose Duarte's Handmade Visualization Toolkit

Colombian designer Jose Duarte wants to bring the DIY concept to data visualization. Using ordinary materials like balloons, tape and rubber balls, he has experimented with various visualization techniques from area charts to bubble graphs and ven diagrams in diverse scenarios as business, art, street interventions and even astronomy. To help people build physical visualizations he designed a physical toolkit he calls the Handmade visualization toolkit. Sources: Maria Popova (2011) Analog […]

Colombian designer Jose Duarte wants to bring the DIY concept to data visualization. Using ordinary materials like balloons, tape and rubber balls, he has experimented with various visualization techniques from area charts to bubble graphs and ven diagrams in diverse scenarios as business, art, street interventions and even astronomy. To help people build physical visualizations he designed a physical toolkit he calls the Handmade visualization toolkit. Sources: Maria Popova (2011) Analog Infoviz: Handmade Visualization Toolkit. Jose Duarte's Flickr photostream. Jose Duarte's Website www.handmadevisuals.com. All images by Jose Duarte.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: authoring, charts, hand-made, toolkit

2011 – Stephen Barrass' Physical Data Sonifications

Physical representations of data can target other senses than vision or touch. Stephen Barrass, one of the inventors of sonification in the late 90s and now at the University of Canberra, started to explore physical sonifications in 2011. He calls this principle Acoustic Sonification: Acoustic Sonifications are physical objects designed to make sounds that convey useful information about a dataset of some kind. Unlike other sonifications, they do not require a power supply, and the sounds are […]

Physical representations of data can target other senses than vision or touch. Stephen Barrass, one of the inventors of sonification in the late 90s and now at the University of Canberra, started to explore physical sonifications in 2011. He calls this principle Acoustic Sonification: Acoustic Sonifications are physical objects designed to make sounds that convey useful information about a dataset of some kind. Unlike other sonifications, they do not require a power supply, and the sounds are interactively produced in real time through physical interaction with the object. The image on the top shows his recent Hypertension Singing Bowl (2013), a singing bowl that has been digitally shaped from a year of blood pressure readings, and 3D printed in stainless steel. Its pitch and timbre are a function of the recorded data. The second row shows earlier explorations: to the left is the HRTF Medaillon (2011). The dataset consists of two HRTFs measured on a dummy head. A Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF) characterizes how a particular ear receives sound from different points in space. Because each ear is uniquely shaped its HRTF is also unique. One side of the medallion shows data from the left ear, while the other side shows data from the right ear. This design was initially not meant to produce sounds. The next image shows an iteration (2012) where HRTF data has been used to create bells of different shapes and acoustic qualities. Although differences in shape between the left and right bells are hardly visible, the pitch and timbre they produce can be compared against each other, and with the "null bell" in the middle. Sources: Stephen Barrass (2014) discusses and demos his different designs on youtube. Stephen Barrass (2011) HRTF Medaillon. Stephen Barrass (2012) Digital Fabrication of Acoustic Sonifications. Stephen Barrass (2012) Acoustic Sonification (you can hear the HRTF bells there). Jane (2013) Interview: Stephen Barrass and his Singing Bowls. Stephen Barrass (2014) The Hypertension Singing Bowl: Research Through Design in Acoustic Sonification. Stephen Barrass (2014) Acoustic Sonification of Blood Pressure in the Form of a Singing Bowl. All images by Stephen Barrass. Video by Umwe Bejo.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: Yvonne Jansen. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: blood pressure, data jewellery, health, HRTF, sonification, sound, steel

2014 – Data Clothing: Dresses Show Air Pollution

Laura Perovich explored the concept of data-driven clothes as part of her Master thesis at the MIT Media Lab. The fashion dresses above show the concentrations of 100 chemical contaminants measured in the air of a particular household (left image). Chemicals are mapped to small squares and relative concentration is mapped to square size. Squares are repeated to create lace patterns (right image shows the concentration of several factory-related pollutants). In her thesis Laura Perovich […]

Laura Perovich explored the concept of data-driven clothes as part of her Master thesis at the MIT Media Lab. The fashion dresses above show the concentrations of 100 chemical contaminants measured in the air of a particular household (left image). Chemicals are mapped to small squares and relative concentration is mapped to square size. Squares are repeated to create lace patterns (right image shows the concentration of several factory-related pollutants). In her thesis Laura Perovich discusses how data clothing may be used in the future to raise air pollution awareness: One can imagine the print on your shirt changing as your chemical exposures change; your clothing changing shape and stiffness to become uncomfortable and encourage you to leave a heavily polluted area; or your clothing increasing its protectiveness by offering air filtration in polluted spaces. These types of projects would increase understanding by giving ongoing relevant information and prompting action based on these understandings. Sources: Laura Perovich (2014) Dressed in Data. Laura Perovich (2014) Data Experiences: novel interfaces for data engagement using environmental health data.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: Yvonne Jansen. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: air pollution, data clothing, digital fabrication, environment, textile

2014 – Cosmos: Carbon Exchange Captured in a Wooden Ball

Artist duo Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt created this two-meter spherical wooden sculpture located in a forest in England, and representing the take up and loss of carbon dioxide from the forest trees across one year. Watching the video, I was somehow expecting this sphere to roll at some point, but it did not happen. Source: Semiconductor (2014) Cosmos.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: Mathieu Le Goc. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: air pollution, carbon emission, data sculpture, digital fabrication, milling, sustainability, wooden

2033 – Cetonia: Drone Swarm Visualizations

As part of the VIS'14 Workshop Death of the Desktop, infovis researcher Wesley Willett imagines how nano drone swarms may be used in 2033 both to capture and visualize data directly in the real world: At barely 1.5 centimeters across, each Cetonia scarab is a marvel of precision engineering. Designed from the ground up for agile flight, their integrated hydrogen chambers and a high-efficiency hover mode permit 15+ minutes of air time between charges. The hueSHIFT carapace is capable of […]

As part of the VIS'14 Workshop Death of the Desktop, infovis researcher Wesley Willett imagines how nano drone swarms may be used in 2033 both to capture and visualize data directly in the real world: At barely 1.5 centimeters across, each Cetonia scarab is a marvel of precision engineering. Designed from the ground up for agile flight, their integrated hydrogen chambers and a high-efficiency hover mode permit 15+ minutes of air time between charges. The hueSHIFT carapace is capable of displaying over 22 million possible colors and provides clear visual feedback in day or night with visibilities up to 1.5 kilometers. Integrated camera and sensor arrays permit full 6D reconstructions with composition profiling. From your wrist or a personal field station you can quickly deploy flights in automated formations to survey, measure, record, and manipulate almost anything. Source: Wesley Willett (2014) Cetonia - A Dynamic Swarm at your Fingertips.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Enabling technology Tags: future, nano drones