Tag: Temporal Data

1753 – Barbeu-Dubourg's Machine Chronologique

Before Joseph Priestley published his famous timelines, Frenchman Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg built a 16-meter long timeline showing 140 years of world history, which can be mechanically scrolled and folded for transport. Not a physical visualization but maybe the first “interactive” timeline representation in history. Seen in a talk by Catherine Plaisant. Sources: Stephen Boyd Davis (2009) The First Modern Timeline? Stephen Ferguson (1991) The 1753 Carte Chronographique by Jacques Barbeu Du Bourg. […]

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Other  Tags: mechanical interaction, temporal data, timeline


1915 – Wire Models of Factory Worker Movements

3D wire models of hand motion paths (or chronocyclegraphs) created by Frank Gilbreth, a pioneer in the study of motion in the workplace. In his 1917 book, Gilbreth explains how he created these solid models from time-lapse photographs, and how useful they are to study and teach human motion. Left image: Wire model of foreman on drill press. This shows “positioning” in the midst of “transporting.” Right image: First photograph of wire models showing one man's progress of learning paths of least […]

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: factory, hand movement, pragmatic, temporal data, wire


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 […]

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


1951 – Electricity Generated or Demanded

A 3D chart made out of a jagged cardboard for each year representing generated electricity and demand over time. Three-dimensional chart used by Central Electricity Generating Board planners, c.1954. Consists of about 300 cards with square-cut stepped edges in an enclosure of chrome steel uprights, mounted on a wooden base, with a handle at each end. Data represented from October 1951 to April 1954. An early example of 3D data visualisation [...] Sources: Alice Cliff and Jenny Rinkinen (2018) […]

Added by: Till Nagel, sent by: Jill Hubley. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: 3D, cardboard, electricity, power, temporal data


2008 – Psychogeographical Mapping: Travel Logging with LEGO bricks

American artist Cory Imig reconstructed the layout of the city of Savannah using LEGO bricks, and over the course of one month she added a colored brick every time she went to a particular place. Each color is a different day of the week. Source: Cory Imig (2008) Psychogeographical Mapping (see the section Documenting of her Web page for more data sculptures).

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: Loren Madsen. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: data sculpture, LEGO, self-logging, temporal data, travels


2011 – Sleep Patterns

Laurie Frick's Pokey Red is a physical visualization of sleep data over a month. Frick makes an interesting use of the physical support: in her visualization, periods of sleep of a lesser interest (light sleep) are folded up, giving more importance to the periods of quality sleep (coloured rectangles), while remaining integral part of the visualization. "Pokey Red" 12 in x 12 in, cut paper, watercolor and ink. Based on a month of sleep data, with the light sleep (aka trash sleep) periods folded […]

Added by: Fanny Chevalier. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: paper, quantified slef, sleep, temporal data


2011 – Blip: A Year of Travel

In his experiments with visualizing data from Tripit to look back at his own (and other people's) travel, Cemre Güngör came up with a new system to create data sculptures from one's travels over time. This work is of a particular interest, in that it shows an excellent example of how a physical visualization design process unfolds, with many questions unique to physicalization add up to the challenge of designing an effective visual representation, i.e., contrasting materials and treatments […]

Added by: Fanny Chevalier. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: see-through, self-logging, temporal data, travel


2012 – Bit Planner - LEGO calendar

Vitamins studio created The Bit Planner, an elegant wall mounted time and resource planner made entirely of Lego bricks. In this tangible calendar, each gray row represents a month, and each gray rectangle represents a week, and everyone in the group has their own line in the calendar (see left image). Projects are associated to different colors, and each LEGO block corresponds to half a day spent working on a project. While entirely tangible, the Bit Planner can be synched with an online, […]



2014 – District 5: Tube Charts Reveal Decline in Violence

California-based artist Loren Madsen, a long-time data sculptor (see our 1995 entry and our interview with him), created an outdoor sculpture where steel tubes show falling crime rates across eight crime categories over 30 years. The sculpture stands in front of a police station and jail in Chicago City. Sources: ​Healther Schultz (2015) California Sculptor Completes Commissioned Piece. Image courtesy of Loren Madsen. Also see Steven Pinker's TED Talk on the topic.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: Loren Madsen. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: crime, data sculpture, outdoor sculpture, statistics, temporal data


2016 – Motus Forma: People's Motions in a Shared Space

Motus Forma is a data sculpture by Brian Allen and Stephanie Smith that aggregates 10 hours of people movements in the lobby space at Pier 9. The 1300+ motion paths are piled up according to time. Sources: Autodesk (2016) Motus Forma Instructables (2016) Motus Forma Photo by Pierre Dragicevic Related: Also see our other entries on temporal data.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: 3d printing, data sculpture, temporal data