1900 – Pearson and Lee's Height Correlation Chart

The physical model on the left is a bivariate histogram showing the correlation between the heights of fathers (horizontal axis) and sons ("vertical" axis). This data was famously collected by Karl Pearson and Alice Lee between 1893 and 1898. The physical visualization is thought to have been constructed around this time period or soon after, possibly under the supervision of Pearson. It is kept at the Department of Statistical Science, University College London, founded by Pearson in 1911. I […]

The physical model on the left is a bivariate histogram showing the correlation between the heights of fathers (horizontal axis) and sons ("vertical" axis). This data was famously collected by Karl Pearson and Alice Lee between 1893 and 1898. The physical visualization is thought to have been constructed around this time period or soon after, possibly under the supervision of Pearson. It is kept at the Department of Statistical Science, University College London, founded by Pearson in 1911. I (Pierre) learned about this model after seeing a more recent model in the archives of the collection of solid mathematical models at the Institut Henri Poincaré (right image). A label said "Model Prepared by Dept. of Statistics, University College London". I then wrote to Professor Richard Chandler, current chair of the statistics department, to ask if he had more information about this model. He replied soon after: Thank you for your message below. This is interesting … I have never seen this particular model before, but the labelling looks very similar to some exhibits that were prepared for an event at the Royal Statistical Society in (I think) the 1980s. I arrived at UCL in 1994: at that time there were some people in the department who had been involved in that event. Unfortunately they are no longer with us, so I can’t provide any further information. I can, however, speculate that the model you’re showing is a cardboard copy of a much older one that was prepared at the end of the 19th century, probably under the supervision of Karl Pearson. We still have this. I found this particular model in my desk drawer when I first arrived at UCL: it was broken into a very large number of pieces, but I had it restored. It is quite a nice piece of 19th-century data visualisation, I think! Upon closer examination, the newer model does not show the same dataset as the older model. The following R code replicates the older model exactly, confirming that it shows the original dataset from Pearson and Lee: library(dplyr) library(HistData) library(plot3D) d = HistData::PearsonLee %>% filter(par == "Father" & chl == "Son") %>% reshape2::acast(parent~child, value.var="frequency") plot3D::hist3D(z = d[nrow(d):1,], col="white", border="black", shade=0.2, phi=60, theta=0) Sources: Pearson, K., & Lee, A. (1903). On the Laws of Inheritance in Man: I. Inheritance of Physical Characters. Left photo kindly sent by Richard Chandler. Right photo taken by Pierre Dragicevic during a visit kindly organized by Alba Málaga and guided by François Apéry.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: Richard Chandler. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: correlation, distribution, science, statistics

1926 – Karsten's Tridimensional Chart

American economist and statistician Karl G. Karsten patented a method for creating physical visualizations of temporal data by stacking two-dimensional plates, each representing a time period. Each of the plates shown above is a variable-width column chart representing the state of the stock market at the end of a particular month. Each bar is a type of stock, where the height of the bar encodes the stock price and its width encodes volumes of sales. Each month, a new layer is added. Seen from […]

American economist and statistician Karl G. Karsten patented a method for creating physical visualizations of temporal data by stacking two-dimensional plates, each representing a time period. Each of the plates shown above is a variable-width column chart representing the state of the stock market at the end of a particular month. Each bar is a type of stock, where the height of the bar encodes the stock price and its width encodes volumes of sales. Each month, a new layer is added. Seen from above, this 3D visualization becomes a 2D stacked bar chart showing volumes of sales across time. Karl G. Karsten wrote a book entitled Charts And Graphs in 1925, where he discusses physical visualizations used in engineering. Many of these were previously discussed in John Peddle's 1910 book The construction of graphical charts and Willard Cope Brinton's 1914 book Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts. Source: Karl G. Karsten (1926) Tridimensional Chart. US Patent. Related: Also see our entries 1935 – 3D Visualizations of Power Consumption and 1951 – Electricity Generated or Demanded.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: RJ Andrews. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: rearrangeable, stock market, temporal data

2016 – Accomplishments

Accomplishments is an exploration of personal data tracking, wearable art, wearable technology, social media, and data physicalization. Each day accomplishments were tracked, first on paper then by sewing spheroid masses onto a dress worn for four months. By hand sewing each accomplishment onto this dress, they became a part of the wearer's physical presence and identity. The work juxtaposes the immediateness of social media posts, and the separate identity we create for ourselves online which […]

Accomplishments is an exploration of personal data tracking, wearable art, wearable technology, social media, and data physicalization. Each day accomplishments were tracked, first on paper then by sewing spheroid masses onto a dress worn for four months. By hand sewing each accomplishment onto this dress, they became a part of the wearer's physical presence and identity. The work juxtaposes the immediateness of social media posts, and the separate identity we create for ourselves online which is often detached from our physical presence. The work also spoke to the use of wearable technology and the ability to track daily steps, sleep, emotions and other personal information as a standard practice. This data is often shared publicly online, however, these devices often remain invisible by their small size, camouflaged as watches, necklaces or hidden in pockets. Sources: Michelle Sylvestre, Accomplishments. University of Lethbridge (2016) Artist wears her heart, and her accomplishments, on her sleeve.

Added by: Michelle Sylvestre. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: data clothing, textile

2017 – Data Sculpture of Latin American Apprehensions

This piece is a physical matrix representing recorded data on Latin American migrants traveling to the United States between the years 2011 and 2014. It was constructed as a conceptual study into using sculpture and tangibility as an alternative form of expressing empirical data. Even though apprehensions do not account for those who make it through to the U.S. or those who were killed or gone missing, apprehensions still shed light on important migration patterns over time. Each column […]

This piece is a physical matrix representing recorded data on Latin American migrants traveling to the United States between the years 2011 and 2014. It was constructed as a conceptual study into using sculpture and tangibility as an alternative form of expressing empirical data. Even though apprehensions do not account for those who make it through to the U.S. or those who were killed or gone missing, apprehensions still shed light on important migration patterns over time. Each column represents a border sector, starting in CA in the west, and ending in TX. Each row represents the years between 2011 (top row) and 2014. The clear acrylic layers represent apprehended Mexican population, and the colorful acrylic layers represent apprehended Central American (El Salvadoran, Honduran, and Guatemalan) population. Aesthetics and tangibility can be employed to counteract the reduction of a subject for easy consumption and instead embrace its complexity and humanity where the audience encounters multiple angles, differing perspectives, and the freedom to explore - ultimately creating a broader understanding of the subject with nuance and subtlety. Through an emotive and multifaceted data experience we may provoke a more critical and thoughtful discourse while agitating discussion of solutions addressing pressing social issues. Materials & Software Tools: Laser Cut Acrylic, Spray Paint, Illustrator, Python, Postgresql Source: Sadie Coughlin-Prego, Data Sculpture of Latin American Apprehensions, Sadieprego.com

Added by: Sadie Prego, sent by: Sadie Prego. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: apprehensions, migration

2018 – Harassment Plants

Harassment Plants is a situated physicalization exhibited in a Brazilian city to represent stories of harassment experienced by women in a public lakeside. Each vase represents a different category of harassment and contains glyphs that represent cases of harassment. The color in the middle of the vase corresponds to the type of harassment, which is also represented by the same color in one of the beads. Each glyph is composed of a rod — whose length represents the time of the day the […]

Harassment Plants is a situated physicalization exhibited in a Brazilian city to represent stories of harassment experienced by women in a public lakeside. Each vase represents a different category of harassment and contains glyphs that represent cases of harassment. The color in the middle of the vase corresponds to the type of harassment, which is also represented by the same color in one of the beads. Each glyph is composed of a rod — whose length represents the time of the day the harassment occurred — and a pendant with multiple beads — which correspond to the victim's reaction, the perceived age of the harasser, etc. Source: Luiz Morais (2018) Harassment plants.

Added by: Luiz Morais. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: glyph, hand-made, plants, sexual harassment, situated

2019 – Perpetual Plastic

Winner of the National Geographic and Sky Ocean Ventures Ocean Plastic Innovation Challenge [This project] highlights the scope of the plastic problem (in terms of amount produced as well as its fate) and the transformation of plastic over its lifetime, using beach debris as a salient example. The situated, participatory data installation approach extends abstract displays of numbers towards a more gripping form of ‘data visceralization.’ The direct link to beach clean-up activities suggests […]

Winner of the National Geographic and Sky Ocean Ventures Ocean Plastic Innovation Challenge [This project] highlights the scope of the plastic problem (in terms of amount produced as well as its fate) and the transformation of plastic over its lifetime, using beach debris as a salient example. The situated, participatory data installation approach extends abstract displays of numbers towards a more gripping form of ‘data visceralization.’ The direct link to beach clean-up activities suggests immediate opportunities for action, turning the sculpture into a catalyst for engagement. Source: Liina Klauss, Skye Morét and Moritz Stefaner (2019) perpetual-plastic.net

Added by: Petra Isenberg. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: Environment, Situated, Pollution

2019 – Physicalizing Cardiac Blood Flow Data

Blood flow data from cardiac 4D Flow MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) holds much potential for research and diagnosis of flow-related diseases. However, understanding this data is quite challenging – after all, it is a volumetric vector field that changes over time. This paper proposes a novel slice-based physical model as a complementary method for visualizing the flow data. The design of this model respects the conventional method of viewing medical imagery (i.e., in cross-sections) but has […]

Blood flow data from cardiac 4D Flow MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) holds much potential for research and diagnosis of flow-related diseases. However, understanding this data is quite challenging – after all, it is a volumetric vector field that changes over time. This paper proposes a novel slice-based physical model as a complementary method for visualizing the flow data. The design of this model respects the conventional method of viewing medical imagery (i.e., in cross-sections) but has the added advantages of engaging one’s sense of touch. Source: Kathleen Ang, Faramarz F. Samavati, Samin Sabokrohiyeh, Julio Garcia, Mohammed S Elbaz (2019) Physicalizing cardiac blood flow data via 3D printing.

Added by: Hessam Djavaherpour. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: 3d printing, blood flow, digital fabrication, manipulable, medical, MRI, volumetric

2019 – Tattoo Biosensors

Tattoos that Change Color When Reacting With Glucose Levels: minimally invasive, injectable dermal biosensors were developed for measuring pH, glucose, and albumin concentrations. Sources: Biotech (2019) Twitter post. Yetisen et al (2019) Dermal Tattoo Biosensors for Colorimetric Metabolite Detection.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: Maarten Lambrechts. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: indexical, medical, skin, tattoo

2019 – Sleep Blanket

A visualization of my son's sleep pattern from birth to his first birthday. Crochet border surrounding a double knit body. Each row represents a single day. Each stitch represents 6 minutes of time spent awake or asleep. Source: Seung Lee (2019) Twitter thread. Related: Also see our entry 2013 – Temperature Scarves and Afghans.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: Steffen (@s1effen). Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: baby, data clothing, textile, self-logging, sleep

2021 – Personal Data Physicalizations in Class

Images created by students to represent their personal data. Refer to the publication below for image attributions. I describe the results of implementing a personal data physicalization assignment in an information visualization course for senior undergraduate and graduate students in computer science and software engineering. By collecting data about themselves and representing this data in physical forms, students were able to i) learn about data visualization, ii) […]

Images created by students to represent their personal data. Refer to the publication below for image attributions. I describe the results of implementing a personal data physicalization assignment in an information visualization course for senior undergraduate and graduate students in computer science and software engineering. By collecting data about themselves and representing this data in physical forms, students were able to i) learn about data visualization, ii) design creatively; and iii) learn about themselves. While data physicalization in education has been explored with non-technical and novice audiences, the experience I report in this paper provides evidence that data physicalization also has benefits for technical, visualization-savvy students. Also check out our entry 2010 – Data Sculptures in Class Sources: Charles Perin. What Students Learn with Personal Data Physicalization. CG&A SPecial Issue on Visualization Education, 2021.10.1109/MCG.2021.3115417. Author pre-print available at https://hal.inria.fr/hal-03360714. Charles Perin. Personal Data Physicalization assignment v1. University of Victoria Information Visualization course. 2019. Charles Perin. Personal Data Physicalization assignment v2. University of Victoria Information Visualization course. 2021.

Added by: Charles Perin. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: teaching, personal data, physicalization, education