The Tao of Visualisation

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Investigating the topic of visualisation of social networks that I have written about recently, I have come across VisualComplexity.Com, a great source of information on visualisation of various networks. Here's what they say about it:
VisualComplexity.com intends to be a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks. The project's main goal is to leverage a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of disciplines, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web.
On their main page there are links to different visualisation projects, complete with short description and accompanying images. I have to say that some of them are really beautiful, true bridge between the worlds of art and science, with the exquisite presentation layer serving as the means of conveying actual information. Observe some samples below (and head to the project list on Visual Complexity for more):


Useful and very pretty (if only all women could be too), some of these projects almost make me regret having left my academic career related to visualisation. Also, as a result of visiting numerous sites related to the aforementioned projects, I have stumbled upon this beautiful videoclip prepared by user flight404 (check his blog for more cool things) :



Is there anyone who dares to claim that art and science can't go hand in hand?

2 comments:

G-chan said...

My rather geek perceptions tend to tell me that indeed, it's pretty "beautiful".
Just my personal sense of aesthetics I guess !
Actually, that's something I'd like to work on for a while !

Barts said...

I, too, think that some of the examples are really beautiful.

And I also hoped I would be working on something similar when I was finishing my studies, but hey, that's just life. :)