SolidSmack brings us the news of a new 3D collaboration and sharing site called “Sunglass.io” that brings viewing, manipulation, and evaluation to the masses. Their first app is called “Stage”.
It is a web based, format agnostic shared model space for the 3D community and makes sharing, presenting, discussing 3D content easy. super easy. If you are a product designer wanting to showcase your work in 3D or, if you are an architect reviewing designs with a remote client or, if you are a 3D artist collaborating with multiple colleagues over the network – we believe you will find Stage valuable. – Kaustuv DeBiswas, co-founder.
Their next app will be called “Sim” and will bring design tools to the interface, as well as to mobile devices. It’ll be interesting to use an iPad as a design tool.
via Sunglass.io: Web-based 3D Content Sharing and Collaboration – SolidSmack.com.
Graphics design, sunglass.io, web
To generate some buzz for the Web2.0 summit they created a fun map of the major web properties and social networks on an interactive website so that you can pan and zoom, and then watch how the various “countries” have begun to encroach on each other.
More than any time in the history of the Web, incumbents in the network economy are consolidating their power and staking new claims to key points of control.
Meanwhile, insurgents both large and small are hoping to gain footholds or take ground in new territories.
Welcome to the first iteration of the Web 2.0 Summit’s theme, Points of Control!
via The Web 2.0 Summit Points of Control Map.
Graphics conference, map, web
With HTML5 supporting a native <VIDEO> tag for including flash-free video, the war for a suitable video codec has started a new battle between Ogg Theora and h264. Jan Ozer just completed a hands-on comparison of the two at various bitrates, focusing on the low bitrates used by most internet streaming services and found h264 the clear victor.
“These tests are very aggressive, but purposefully so—at very high data rates, all codecs look good. In particular, YouTube encodes their H.264 video at 2mbps, about 2.5X higher than my tests. So my conclusion isn't that Ogg is a bad codec; it's that producers seeking the optimal balance between data rate and quality will find H.264 superior,”
However, h264 is still encumbered by patents and legal entanglements that, while currently free to users, could turn it into a literal ‘pay to play’ scenario. This could all prove moot however, thanks to Google’s recent acquisition of On2 and their high-performance VP8 video codec. In a recent plea by the FSF:
“With your purchase of On2, you now own both the world’s largest video site (YouTube) and all the patents behind a new high performance video codec—VP8,” the letter says. “Just think what you can achieve by releasing the VP8 codec under an irrevocable royalty-free license and pushing it out to users on YouTube? You can end the web’s dependence on patent-encumbered video formats and proprietary software (Flash).”
Where do you weight in on the web video codec debate?
via Ogg Theora vs. H.264: head to head comparisons.
Science h264, oggtheora, video, web
A new charting library is on the block, this time working entirely with HTML5: rGraph.
RGraph is a HTML5 canvas graph library. It uses features that became available in HTML5 (specifically, the CANVAS tag) to produce a wide variety of graph types: bar chart, bi-polar chart (also known as an age frequency chart), donut chart, funnel chart, gantt chart, horizontal bar chart, LED display, line graph, meter, odometer, pie chart, progress bar, pseudo radar chart, scatter graph and traditional radar chart.
Using only HTML5 and Canvas means No Flash, which means they are viewable on an iPhone. (Unfortunately, all of the interactive features are nonfunctional, overriden by Safari for use in Pan & Zoom). Beta version is available now, with the first official release coming soon.
via RGraph: A HTML5 canvas graph library based on the HTML5 canvas tag.
Science chart, html5, rgraph, web
A new article on Tripwire Magazine compiles a list of 75 tools for visualizing your data on the web, and breaks it down into Javascript solutions, CSS solutions, Server-side solutions, Flash-based solutions, and other online tools and services you can investigate.
Images says more than a thousands words. It is common sense and wise people has followed this rule for centuries by creating illustrations of thier ideas and thoughts. Today it is easier than ever as the technology for presenting nearly any type of information as a graph or chart on a web page is getting really mature. Reading through this article you will be faced with the problem on what technology and specific implementation you should use. It is not a trivial question and I recommend that you use comments on this article to share your ideas, concerns etc. with peer readers. This way you may get the input from the community that you need to create the optimal solution.
via 75+ Tools for Visualizing your Data, CSS, Flash, jQuery, PHP | tripwire magazine.
Science interactive, list, visualization, web
A new interactive visualization on MSNBC.com shows the history storm track of 283 hurricanes curring since 1851 and 2008. Using the various controls you can filter the dataset by storm intensity (Tropical Depression through Cat5), Year (slider on the bottom), landfall location (slider on the right), and individual hurricane name or location.
Historical Hurricane Tracker – - MSNBC.com.
Science hurricane, interactive, msnbc, web
A new web startup company “Nebul.us” aims to visualize your personal browsing behavior and provide a means of selectively sharing this data with friends or the world in general. It has the popular social network features (Friends, sharing, connecting with twitter, etc) but for our interest is has a nice circular visualization of your history.
The visualization itself consists of a circular donut shape, with online types of media represented as rings, and visits or online service usages mapped as separate bands. The shape and position of these bands represent a standard clock face: the length and position of a band corresponds to the time one visited a particular website or online service. Users can navigate through the content rings and narrow down to a specific day or hour, or a specific web page, song or photo, to discover specific usage patterns, to check how much time they spend on a particular page, or to share any of this content with others.
Nebul.us via Nebul.us: Visualizing (and Sharing) your Online Activity – information aesthetics.
Science nebul.us, socialmedia, web
I was checking the weather today, a decided rainy day, and saw that Weather Underground now has a “3d Weather Radar” Feature. The overlay the existing 2D terrain & radar map with a 3d isosurface extracted from the data.
- The 3D interface shows 3 iso-surfaces of radar dBZ (3D surfaces of equal radar echo/precipitation strength). These surfaces are 20 (green), 30 (yellow), and 50 (red) dBZ.
- A standard 2D radar image covers the ground.
- USGS terrain is drawn at 30 arc-second resolution to show topography
- Place names are drawn in white text
- Counties are drawn as black lines
It’s powered by the Unity player. It’s still very basic, and not worth much more than fun factor at the moment. What else could they add that would make it more valuable?
via 3D Radar : Weather Underground.
Science 3d, interactive, unity, unity3d, weather, web
In an interesting recursion, Andrew Wilcox and used MindMeister’s online mind-mapping software to construct a mind map of various mind mapping software packages, cataloging the pros and cons of each. Mind maps are a popular organization & visualization tool for tracking a “stream of consciousness” brainstorming session, and the interesting recursion of this idea is something to think about.
The Strengths and Weaknesses of Mind Mapping Software Applications Please add new applications Please include comments on a Strengths and Weaknesses topic for each application – MindMeister Mind Map. via Cool Infographics
Science interactive, mindmap, web
A new FireFox extension from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab collects web browsing behavior and compiles some interesting graphics showing your usage history.
Eyebrowse [csail.mit.edu] is an add-on for Firefox developed by the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, which has the ability to record, visualize, and share one’s browser history in real-time. The resulting data is represented as a collection of insightful data visualizations, such as individual profiles, tickers, page stats or more data-heavy bar graphs, timelines and dot charts that highlight day-by-day usage patterns (e.g. top URLs, #websites over time and time patterns respectively).
Such data could one day supplement (or replace) information from search engine companies like Google & Alexa, making targeted information and detailed analytics more accurate.
via EyeBrowse: Record, Visualize and Share your Browser History – information aesthetics.
Science firefox, infographic, internet, mit, web
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