The Wall Street Journal ran a review of a 3D printer, the MakerBot Replicator Mini, yesterday. Nothing too unusual there, at least for 2014. But the paper went a few steps beyond the norm in presenting it.

First, it made a two-minute explainer video. De rigueur at this point.

Then it used a 3…

Source: www.niemanlab.org

3D bar charts, often scourged by dataviz creators who follow Tufte’s advice regarding clarity of design and avoiding creating chart junk, get a new twist in the Wall Street Journal’s review of the MakerBot Replicator Mini.

 

This article shows the generation of the chart, from 3D modeling on screen to the printing of the chart with the MakerBot unit.

 

The model was also loaded to MakerBot’s Thinkiverse for others to print.

 

Finally, the WSJ also used the augmented reality app Augment to embed the bar chart in the newspaper.

 

Joshua Benton, author of the article, does comment that it seems to be a gimmick, but it’s an interesting exercise, and could be considered another way to approach creating #transmedia.

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