Chart Chooser

A quick reference guide (in the form of a mind map) by Andrew Abela on choosing the right type of chart for the type of message you are trying to communicate with your data.

Found on Digital Inspiration

F1 Racing Car Changes Video

Great animated video the visually shows you the changes in the F1 racing cars for 2009.

A fantastic computer-animated clip features Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel racing on track, as they bring to life the biggest rule changes in the history of Formula One.  Last seasons car morphs into the current Red Bull Racing car, the RB5, showing all the bodywork changes from nose to rear wing.

From www.automotivetv.net

TimeSpace - World

From The Washington Post, TimeSpace-World is an experiment in a visual way to see news stories from around the world.  You can specify the time period during a day that you want to see with the slider, and then click the stories to zoom into the map.  You can also enter search terms to view a smaller set of relevant stories.

TimeSpace is an interactive map that allows you to navigate articles, photos, video and commentary from around the globe. Discover news hot-spots where coverage is clustered. Use the timeline to illustrate peaks in coverage, and customize your news searches to a particular day or specific hour. (Many Washington Post stories appear at midnight; others are published throughout the day as news happens). Click the ? In the upper right for help.

 Link found from Mitul69 on Twitter

Space Debris image

Great image from MSNBC PhotoBlog that tries to demonstrate how much space junk we have put into orbit around Earth.  I think the downside of this image is that the satellites aren't to scale.  If they were all this large, they would be running into each other all the time.

If you have Windows, you can see this high-res version with Microsoft HDView, but it doesn't work on a Mac.  I was able to see it with Parallels running on my MacBook.

A computer-generated artist's impression released by the European Space Agency (ESA) depicts an approximation of 12,000 objects in orbit around the Earth. A communications satellite belonging to US company Iridium collided with a defunct Russian military satellite on February 12, 2009.  (ESA via AFP - Getty Images/)

Thanks Karen for sending in the link!

Google Data Visualization Concepts

Check out GridPlane.com.  JD Hooge has posted images of some data visualization concepts he worked on with Google to look at aggregating social media topics.

I collaborated with Instrument to develop a series of data visualization concepts for Google. These interface sketches are are all based around a concept of aggregating and visualizing online media buzz across various social media outlets.

Thanks Edial for sending in the link!

The Ultimate Mammal Family Tree

This is very cool.  Going back 166 million years to see each of the branches where we share common mammalian ancestors.  The PDF is available for download, and is very detailed.  You need to zoom a long way to even see that there is text naming each of the known mammals in existence today.  It's a radial family tree that also represents a timeline as you move outwards from the center.  Here we are:

 

 

ABC TV in Australia did a short video on the family tree hosted by Dr. Paul Willis, and he literally walks around the infographic describing different parts.  Well done, and seemed very reminiscent of Carl Sagan in some of his shows.  The video credits Robin Beck, a Mammalian Systematist as the University of NSW, of creating the family tree.  Here's the link to the ABC page where you can watch the video, or you can click on the image below.

Thanks for the link Alwyn!  Great find!

This Is Now!

Take a few minutes to enjoy the Sprint website http://now.sprint.com/widget/, a collection of widgets showing seemingly real-time information.

Found on See What You Mean

Long Weekends Calendar

The Long Weekends Calendar was created by thenonhacker (Alwyn Balingit) and posted on DeviantArt.com.  By plotting the holidays in both the U.S. and the Philippines, he has mapped out all the long weekends that need to be considered when creating project timelines involving people in both countries.

It's also good to plan vacation time...

Great job Alwyn!

Infographic Video: The Histoy of the Internet

History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.

Cool video created by Melih Bilgil

"History of the internet" is an animated documentary explaining the inventions from time-sharing to file-sharing, from arpanet to internet.  The history is told with help of the PICOL icons, which are also a part of my diploma. The icons are soon available for free on picol.org

Found on Information Aesthetics, and thanks to Ethel for the Tweet.

Anamorphic Parking Garage Signage

These are images from the Eureka Tower in Melbourne, Australia.  Emery Studio (look at the "Placemaking" link) had the opportunity to use both the horizontal and vertical surfaces to design some anamorphic signage in the parking deck.  When viewed from the correct direction as you're driving, the words appear legible and lead you in the correct direction.  Viewed from another angle, the words appear as abstract lines and colors.

Thanks Ethyl for sending the link on Twitter!  Images are from the Kosmograd blog.