Integration of Simile Timeplot into ScientificCommons

Simile Timeplot and Simile Timeline from MIT SIMILE project Semantic Interoperability of Metadata and Information in unLike Environments are handy libraries to visualize time depending data.
ScientificCommons.org gathers now for more than 2 years data from several hundred repositories worldwide. That means that there is plenty of data for time series visualization. I just started to add graphs for the publication activity of each repository on the repository summary page. Here are some example pages:

• http://en.scientificcommons.org/repository/e-lis
• http://en.scientificcommons.org/repository/qut__eprints_archive

Reference

• http://simile.mit.edu/timeplot/

BMW kinetic structure from ARTCOM

After the beautiful GINA study from BMW I found another interesting project from BMW. The Kinetic Sculpture made up of 714 metal balls translates a virtual design process into the space around it. The sculpture is part of the installations at the new BMW Museum in Munich. Seemingly weightless and guided solely by the power of the mind, the sculpture moves through a cycle of free abstractions and typical BMW vehicle forms.

Reference

• http://www.artcom.de/index.php?option=com_acnews&task=view&id=331&Itemid=136&page=0&lang=en

Visionary Car Design

BMW introduced a new concept car, that major aim is to be as flexible as possible. The engineers completely rethought the car body and replaced it with a skin of a new high tech textile fabric, that's pulled taut around a frame of metal and carbon fiber wires. The skeleton of the car is controlled by electro-hydraulic devices and can actually move and change shape beneath the fabric skin. The car is called GINA, which stands for "Geometry and Functions in 'N' Adaptations". View the videos here (I was really impressed):

Design


Premiere


And don't forget to visit the bmw channel website for more information.

Reference

• http://bmw-web.tv/de/channel/new

Steve Jobs as product portfolio

This is a very nice idea. Using the products to generate a portait..

Reference

• http://www.etoday.ru/2008/03/stevejobs-portrait-mosaic.php

Visualisation of Information Quantity

The current issue of Wired features a portfolio of different artistic visualizations of quantitative information of a text. The thirteen different projects range from virtually created sculptures derived from blog text over the visualization of US census data into abstract colorful walls to the visualization of logs from last.fm. The projects are inspiring design and visualization approaches. One of my favorites is Textour from Tim Walter, which visualizes different quantitative aspects of a given text.

Reference

• http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2008/ff_dataart_1603