Home » Archives for January 2011
So, Friday’s here again, and we’ve picked up some entertaining infographics for our Daily Viz from Visual Loop. First, for you travelers out there, who also happen to love soccer, Travel Supermarket brings some suggestions for football stadium tours in Europe. If you prefer snow sports, you must check The Extreme of Skiing, made by Iglu Ski, with lots of facts about the most hardcore skiers. Then, we move on to the fantasy world of gaming, with Travel Insurance‘s look at the largest Game Worlds – if we could only travel there! And to close this week, Cinema Blend brings all the numbers behind Superhero movies, and Jessica Hische proposes a cool and humorous self-centered question, in flowchart form: should you work for free?
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Graphics, Science design, economy, environment, infographic, infoviz, Visual Loop, visualizations
Cosmetic Surgery Facts from Figures
2010 Advertising Spending By Company
Graphics, Science digest, infographics, list
Under the feet of England there lie over 450 sandstone caves that previously belonged to nobles, lords, or butchers, and they’re rapidly deteriorating and collapsing around us. A new project is using 3D laser scanners to create some amazing maps of these, immortalizing them in their digital glory.
As part of the Caves of Nottingham Regeneration Project, the Nottingham Caves Survey is taking 3D laser scanners into the depths beneath the city to photograph the caves, survey them with the scanner and note their condition. Many of these caves have major historical significance for Nottingham and for England – the earliest written record of caves beneath what was then a Saxon settlement dates to the year 868. The project aims to protect the caves, in the hopes that they won’t simply be forgotten and allowed to deteriorate.
I love the results, they look almost like Half Life maps with the photographic details mapped onto the scanned geometry.
via Mapping the Underworld: Digital 3D Cave Exploration | WebEcoist.
Graphics, Science laser, scanner
If you’re going to be in the neighborhood of the Sundance Film Festival this year, you might want to download the GoldRun app to your iPhone. During the festival, Sorel will be partnering with GoldRun to execute a ‘virtual scavenger hunt’ and place virtual Sorel bears in the area. Find the bear, take a pic, and get a chance to win some Sorel gear.
Sorel has an exclusive partnership with GoldRun that will host the virtual scavenger hunt during the first six days of the festival. Ten virtual Sorel bears will be placed in high traffic areas around Park City. The GoldRun app,available free from the Apple iTunes store, lets people track down, interact with and collect the virtual Sorel bears. People who pose with the Sorel bear can email a picture via the GoldRun app for a chance to win Sorel boots, like the popular Joan of Arctic, for women, and the 1964 Premium, for men, access to VIP-only events, including Sorel happy hours, and cool prizes. Participants are encouraged to upload their photos from the festival to the Sorel Facebook page.
The app seems pretty basic, image and model overlays onto live video tracked via the Compass and GPS of the iPhone. You can download the app here, and try your hand at winning some free stuff.
I’m currently very puzzled, however, by the sample images that show the iPhone running on T-Mobile.
Full press release after the break.
Read more…
Science augmented reality, contest, iphone, sundance
Over at the Telegraph, they look into the science of why are 3D movies such ‘fun’ ? Digging back to the appeal of the ‘original 3D’ movie experience, Plays, they say it’s not the realism or the graphics, but rather the impact of being ‘targeted’. However, in a typical play only a few lucky audience members will be targeting, but in a 3D movie everyone in the audience can be targeted at once.
The difference, then, between a live show seen up close and a 3D movie of the same show is that the former pulls just one or several audience members into the thick of the story, whereas 3D movies have this effect on everyone. So part of the fun of these movies is not they are 3D: the fun is in being targeted. And that fundamentally alters the emotional experience. It no longer feels like a story about others, but becomes a story that invades your space – perhaps threateningly, perhaps provocatively, perhaps joyously.
via Why are 3D movies like ‘Avatar’ such fun? – Telegraph Blogs.
Science stereoscopic
The Department of Defense has been investigating virtual worlds like Second Life for several years for a wide variety of uses ranging from battlefield simulation to system monitoring. Over at GlobalSecurity they have a short interview with clinical psychologist Greg Reger who is using virtual world to treat PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) in war veterans. The process is something like this:
When avatars come into the virtual space, Reger said, they land at a welcome center that offers information about different deployment-related difficulties and a map of activities available in the T2 virtual experience.
“The cornerstone of the experience is when they leave that area and go into an area that teaches about the causes of post-traumatic stress disorder,” Reger said. “They enter a space where they get into a Humvee and are taken through a computer-generated simulation that includes [intense fighting on an Afghan street and] an explosion.
“As this occurs,” he continued, “they receive audio instruction about what we think causes post-traumatic stress disorder, and this sets the stage for the rest of the experience.”
Users then take a simulated flight home, during which they watch a video about post-traumatic stress. They land at a shopping mall, where each store offers an activity that illustrates a symptom and how it may affect daily life.
They don’t provide any information or statistics about the effectiveness of the tool, but they do comment that many PTSD sufferers have difficulty getting out and socializing with other people in groups, so an online tool is perfect for reaching those individuals that would never visit a psychologist for treatment.
via ‘Virtual World’ Helps With Post-traumatic Stress.
Science second life, virtual worlds
Obesity is one of the toughest health problems to fight. It has a lot to do with our daily habits, culture and lifestyle, and Éclairage Public helps us visualizing how this problem affects different nations. GOOD looks at Chronic Diseases and the Internet, The Guardian breaksdown every cause of death in England and Wales on a beautiful design, and from Random Walks comes a very interesting – and informational – infographic about what it takes to form healthy nations. Our last pick goes to Mozbot‘a analysis of Identity Theft – something that it can be also pretty stressful, when you think about it!
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Graphics, Science design, economy, environment, infographic, infoviz, Visual Loop, visualizations
This week’s “Recommended Resource” comes not from Amazon, but from O’Reilly who is hosting a huge sale on the Top 25 of 2010. For today only, you can get the DRM-Free e-Book version of their Top 25 titles, including the popular “Beautiful Visualization”, at an impressive 60% Off.
For one day only, you can save 60% on our best of “Ebook Deal of the Day” titles – the top 25 of 2010.
Ebooks from oreilly.com are DRM-free. You get free lifetime access, multiple file formats,
and free updates. One day only. Use discount code DDT25 in the shopping cart.
via O’Reilly Media – Best of Ebook Deal/Day – Save 60% on the Top 25.
Science book, feature, oreilly, resource of the week
VizWorld.com 
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