VizWorld.com

A few days ago, we told you that Gerald Donovan has stitched together over 4000 images to create a 45-gigapixel photograph of Dubai. Now we have a YouTube video showing the making of the image.

via : The making of Dubai 45 Gigapixels

Hardware, Science extreme, panorama, photography

Visual Economics takes a look at how California ranks as a country when compared to the rest of the world. If you have a child writing a report on California, then here is a good graphic for them. I have only included a portion of the infographic to the right. If you want to see the full size, then click on the link.

California is a big, bustling place. It ranks all around the world in terms of size, people and economy. Here’s a look at how it sizes up against the entire rest of the globe.

California Vs. The WORLD @ Visual Economics

Graphics infographic

We have talked about the Gulf Oil Spill for several days. Now some of the oil is creeping onto land near the Mississippi River Delta. NASA has taken another picture of the oil from its Terra satellite using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument. Up in the right hand side of the image you can see the Mississippi River delta as it empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

NASA satellite image acquired May 9, 2010 at 19 :05 UTC

Oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico

Satellite: Aqua

NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team

To learn more go to: www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/oil-creep.html

via Oil Slick in the Gulf of Mexico May 9th View [Detail] on Flickr – Photo Sharing!.

Science nasa, oil

Sarah Slobin, infographics designer for the New York Times, Fortune Magazine, and now the Wall Street Journal, has collected a list of 7 (and a half) steps to developing successful infographics.  Many of her points apply outside infographics and into just visualization in general, such as this gem on dealing with source data:

Every time I start a graphic, I’m optimistic that my material will show up perfectly packaged with a lovely bow and some chocolate covered pretzels in a cellophane bag. Instead, it usually arrives like the black sheep cousin at a family wedding—late, disheveled and smelling like something stuck to the bottom of a cat’s feet.

Before you can visualize anything, you’ve got to make sure your material is clean, clean, clean and super-organized.

I can attest to that.  Every researcher I deal with seems to think their own proprietary format is the best evar so I spend the first hours of any project writing new file readers.

via The 7 ½ Steps to Successful Infographics – Articles – MIX Online.

Science infographics

NASA has been publishing some nice shots of the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano in Iceland spewing ash into the atmosphere. Hopefully this continued eruption will not cause to many airlines to cancel flights around Europe.

NASA image acquired May 10, 2010 at 13:25 UTC

Ash plume from Eyjafjallajokull Volcano, Iceland

Satellite: Aqua

To learn more go to: www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/iceland-volcano-plume….

NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team

via Ash plume from Eyjafjallajokull Volcano, Iceland May 10th View [detail] on Flickr – Photo Sharing!.

Science nasa

Google has just made the official announcement that they are ending the ambitious O3D project. Originally conceived as a cross-platform plugin to bring hardware-accelerated 3D to all browsers, WebGL has made major inroads into that space and has the likes of NVidia, Apple (Safari), Microsoft, and the Khronos group behind it.  With that in mind, Google has decided to discontinue the plugin and instead turn O3D into a WebGL abstraction layer.

We did not take this decision lightly. In initial discussions we had about WebGL, we were concerned that JavaScript would be too slow to drive a low-level API like OpenGL and we were convinced that a higher level approach like the O3D scene graph would yield better results. We were also cognizant of the lack of installed OpenGL drivers on many Windows machines, and that this could hamper WebGL’s adoption.

via Chromium Blog: The future of O3D.

Science google, o3d, webgl

The Inspired Mag has compiled a great list of Flickr and Google Groups that showcase a wide variety of information graphics and visualization all ready for your perusal.

Today, we bring you a major round-up of the best 35 Flickr Groups to find all kinds of designs, either from major newspapers and magazine, personal portfolios or vintage maps and graphics. Some of those are much more active than others, and it’s pretty obvious you’ll find that many of the submissions are repeated in several Groups – that means that some users are, naturally, more concerned that others in showing off their work.

Even so, we tried to gather Groups that have some level of interest besides those common submissions, so, we hope you enjoy them!

via Top 35 Flickr Groups for Infographics and Data Visualization | Inspired Magazine.

Science flickr, google, infographic

Robert Kosara has a great interview with the Charlotte Observer, which makes sense as he is a professor of Computer Science at UNC Charlotte.  They start off easy with the definition of ‘data visualization’, but quickly move into some of his own implementations of visualization.

I worked with Bank of America looking at wire transfer frauds. We built a visual system that gave them a way to look for clusters of wire transfer transactions by using certain criteria. This was using a large amount of data; they might have a million transfers per week, 50 million per year. Using the visual system we built, they could find suspicious transactions and then investigate. The data here is very abstract. People think about money as coins and bills, but here it is just abstract numbers.

via How to turn numbers into a visual treat – CharlotteObserver.com.

Science interview

Exact Metrology is now offering a new 3D Scanner from Artec called the Artec MHT that can not only scan geometry, but colors and texture as well.  Capable of capturing full 24bpp color and model and then output it in a variety of model formats, it can capture 15 surfaces per second and requires no markers or mounts.

“With the new color and texture scanning capabilities the Artec MHT is unlike any 3D scanner at this price point ” states Steve Young Principal at Exact Metrology. “By capturing highly detailed color 3D models of people and objects the MHT 3D Scanner allows users to quickly and accurately create 3D representations of their world.”

It can be yours for just $20,000.

via 3D Scanner captures surface color and texture data., Exact Metrology, Inc.

Update 5/13: Updated for accuracy.

Hardware exact metrology, scanner

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An interesting collection of hardware news, software, games, conferences, and business.

via All the latest 3D info in a weekly newsletter.

Science 3d, stereoscoppic