Tuesday, July 20, 2010

New Visualizations

I loved this visualization by artist Isao Hashimoto on nuclear explosions



A student named Lee Byron created an astonishing new type of graph, which he calls a stream graph. He used it to chart his musical tastes over time (which are remarkably similar to my own). I don't at all mind the lack of an axis; in time-series histograms size is all relative anyhow. Can't wait to figure out how to put this one to use. Might even have to learn Processing for it!



His coauthor used it to chart movie releases since 1986 in the New York Times. Mesmerizing!



The Washington Post is getting a lot of coverage for their Defense charts. I don't like 'em. The circles are too complicated, and the distance from the center distorts proportion.

Finally, Hans Rosling has some new TED talks up. Including this one with some awesome old-school interactive charts. Am I wicked for wishing that Microsoft had acquired Gapminder instead of Google, so I could use it in Excel?