It’s been a few weeks since we hand a recommended resource, but today’s offering was too good to pass up. It’s not actually available yet, but Nathan Yau of FlowingData now has his book ‘Visualize This‘ available for Pre-Order on Amazon.
Visualize This is a guide on how to visualize and tell stories with data, providing practical design tips complemented with step-by-step tutorials. It begins with a description of the huge growth of data and visualization in industry, news, and gov’t and opportunities for those who tell stories with data. Logically it moves on to actual stories in data-statistical ones with trends and human stories. the technical part comes up quickly with how to gather, parse and format data with Python, R, Excel, Google docs, etc and details tools to visualize data-native graphics for the Web like ActionScript, Flash libraries, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML. Every chapter provides an example as well. Patterns over time and kinds of data charts are followed by proportions, chart types and examples. Next, examples and descriptions of outliers and how to show them, different kinds of maps, how to guide your readers and explain the data “in the visualization”. The book ends with a value-add appendix on graphical perception.
I’ve added this book to the VizWorld store, where you can get it and several others!
Watch the video below and step back in time to the early days of CGI with ‘MAGI’, a company founded to model nuclear radiation transport. They slowly moved into ray-tracing and constructive solid geometry (CSG) to render their results and example scenarios, and eventually wound up created most of the visuals for the original Tron.
Early (1970s through 1980) demo reel from MAGI/Synthavision, who would later go on to provide many of the CGI effects for the feature film Tron. Mostly television advertising and effects in the early years. Apologies for the lack of audio; YouTube flagged the soundtrack for copyright reasons.
If you just feel like your usual games aren’t immersive enough, then check out this list from APC & NVidia of the Top 10 3D Games, that conveniently also includes a guide to getting your system ready for 3D with (you guessed it) NVidia 3D Vision. It’s a good list with some great games.. The cliff notes version:
Big press release from NVidia today announces the creation of 20 new CUDA Research & Teaching centers, scattered across 7 countries, all dedicated to bringing the power of GPU’s to the masses.
“Being named a CUDA Research Center is an exciting opportunity for UNM, and we really look forward to working with NVIDIA on interesting research problems that leverage the GPU-based supercomputer we are in the process of building,” said Pradeep Sen, assistant professor at the University of New Mexico.
This is in addition to the existing 350 that are already out there. Get the full list of sites after the break.
Nielson, collector of everything numeric and statistical regarding Television viewing habits, has just posted the results of an extensive survey on stereoscopic 3D television, and the results are depressing.
In a survey of approximately 27,000 online consumers conducted in September across 53 countries, 13 percent of respondents said they already own or ‘definitely will’ purchase a 3DTV set in the next 12 months. An additional 15 percent of global online consumers said they ‘probably will’ purchase a 3DTV.
Sports and Nature documentaries top the list of what people want to see in 3D, with Video Games and SciFi surprisingly coming in at under 50%.
Tobias Keip has a nice Stereoscopic movie on Vimeo that he created for the Shortfilm Challenge at invazion.org. Using Blender, After Effects, and Photoshop, it’s a great little 5-minute anaglyphic trip through a floating city.
Unfortunately, some parts of the video suffer greatly from encoding artifacts that mess up the visuals, but most of it looks excellent through some classic red/cyan glasses.
Noise. One of the most dangerous forms of pollution, and also one of the less spoken, and Earplug made a great graphic about the health problems related to it. The Carbon Bathtub is also a great representation of the environmental problems caused by our growing CO2 pouring, brought by National Geographic, and IT Grunts asks the big question: how many nukes are needed to wipe out civilization? Another worrying question comes from New Scientist: are states unleashing the dogs of cyber war? Scary…. Finally, Moon Works looks at the history of the housing Bubble.
Just in case you missed the lunar eclipse last night, like I did, here is a nice time lapse video of it. Yeah, I tried to see it, but the clouds were in the way.
If you plan on becoming rich and famous by creating the next big online data visualization or analysis application, then you better hurry up. Seems as though the FCC is about to hand the key to the internet over to AT&T and Comcast, giving them free reign to charge us all to oblivion with mobile internet costs.
Instead of a rule to protect Internet users’ freedom to choose, the Commission has opened the door for broadband payola – letting phone and cable companies charge steep tolls to favor the content and services of a select group of corporate partners, relegating everyone else to the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road.
Instead of protecting openness on wireless Internet devices like the iPhone and Droid, the Commission has exempted the mobile Internet from Net Neutrality protections. This move enshrines Verizon and AT&T as gatekeepers to the expanding world of mobile Internet access, allowing them to favor their own applications while blocking, degrading or de-prioritizing others.
If you think this is a bit paranoid and extremist, just check out this slideWired got from a recent presentation by Allot Communications & Openet of a proposed new pricing scheme of 2c per MB for Facebook, showing them charging by the bit for various data services.
UPDATE: If you don’t quite get Net Neutrality, then read this excellent letter from Steve Wozniak (one of the founders of Apple Computer) who breaks it down simply. More than just packets are on the line here, it’s the public’s perception of the government fighting for the people and not for the wealthy businesses. The cables are run, the lines are already there, just let us keep using them.
iPad Artists, warm up your Styluses (Stylii?) and download the new Auryn Ink app. With features for everything from the experienced to the novice artist, it’s a great app to simulate watercolor drawing and it’s free for the holidays. Check out the list of features:
Watercolor simulation with edge darkening, granulation and back-run effects that all evolve and take form in real-time while you paint.
Choice of canvas texture that affects your brush strokes and paint flow.
Realistic brush model with control over pressure, bristle patterns, and more.
Unique color selector that converts your color choice into a virtual pigment.
Pigment simulation that blends color much like real watercolors combine: the wet pigments mix together and separate dry layers form glaze effects.
Control over amount of water on the brush, which influences flow effects.
Ability to paint with water alone to pre-wet the canvas for wash effects.
Concise control over drying the canvas, and completing (fixing) glaze layers.
Sensitivity to gravity: paint flows downward when the iPad is tilted.
The color blending features are a great touch that most of the other apps out haven’t done. You can go get it from the iOS App Store for free through the holidays, and $1.99 afterwards. Get the full details after the break.
Watch the video below and step back in time to the early days of CGI with ‘MAGI’, a company founded to model nuclear radiation transport. They slowly moved into ray-tracing and constructive solid geometry (CSG) to render their results and example scenarios, and eventually wound up created most of the visuals for the original Tron.
If you just feel like your usual games aren’t immersive enough, then check out this list from APC & NVidia of the Top 10 3D Games, that conveniently also includes a guide to getting your system ready for 3D with (you guessed it) 
Big press release from NVidia today announces the creation of 20 new CUDA Research & Teaching centers, scattered across 7 countries, all dedicated to bringing the power of GPU’s to the masses.
Nielson, collector of everything numeric and statistical regarding Television viewing habits, has just posted the results of an extensive survey on stereoscopic 3D television, and the results are depressing.
Noise. One of the most dangerous forms of pollution, and also one of the less spoken, and 
VizWorld.com 
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