You Need to Get Seadragon!

If you haven't checked it out yet, you need to take a look at Seadragon.  I know its from Microsoft, but I like it anyway!  Seadragon is a software project to allow users to browse and zoom into high-resolution images.  I'm especially attached to the iPhone version of Seadragon Mobile (link opens iTunes) available for free from iTunes!

One of the best things about the iPhone version is that it includes some example images, and includes some of the work from Chris Jordan.  Longtime readers of the blog know I really like Chris Jordan's series "Running the Numbers" which uses high-resolution images to visually show the viewer statistical information about how we live.

What is Wolfram|Alpha?

I'm not sure I understand what Wolfram|Alpha is yet, but so far it's pretty impressive.  Developed by Stephen Wolfram and his team, it claims to be a "computational knowledge engine".  The input box looks like a search engine, but it is definitely NOT a search engine.

When you type in a question, it attempts to show you all of the relevant data it can find.  It is actually calculating and charting this information real-time in order to present it to you.  Because its built on top of the Mathematica Engine, it can also handle math problems.

I think this will be an important tool for many designers of infographics, because you can get some of your raw data directly from Wolfram|Alpha.  As they add more data into the system over time, this will become one of your best resources for information.  They have a pretty extensive page of examples by category that is a great place to start.  Also watch the short video by Stephen Wolfram showing what the system can do.

Mapped Up - Visual News ScreenSaver

From lifehacker.com, MappedUp is a visual RSS Reader/ScreenSaver that displays the location of news stories on a pixel map of the world.  MappedUp is a free download for Windows and Mac OS X.

The Browser Wars Infographic

Great timeline infographic depicting the rise and fall of different browsers portrayed as knights marching across a field.  The data set used is available here.

It took me a while to find any information about the author, but I found this description on the Wired.com blog.

Here's a creative look at the history of the browser wars from 2002 through mid-2008. The infographic was submitted to Reddit by a user named BovingdonBug. He says he created it as part of an application for a graphic design job on a newspaper.

 Thanks Alwyn for the link!

The AI Landscape

From the Association of the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), a cool poster image designed by Giacomo Marchesi that lays out the different areas of AI development.

Thanks Zach!  Also can be found on digg.com

Welcome to the world baby...Processing

In my email yesterday I received a note announcing the release of Processing 1.0.  It's very exciting to see this project release to the world.  There have been many beta versions leading up to this release (162 versions in fact), but for those interested in creating your own infographics this is big news.  What is Processing, you ask?

Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain.
Processing is free to download and available for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

Some of the infographics I have highlighted here on Cool Infographics have been created with the earlier versions of Processing, and I'm hoping for more to come.

Olympics Schedule Tracker

The Olympics Tracker is an interactive schedule of the events.  It now only shows which events are scheduled each day and hour, but you can drag them to rearrange your favorites to the top.  Clicking on past events shows the results, and clicking on future events shows the upcoming event details.  Medal awarding events marked with a small medal icon.  You can even download a desktop version for Mac or Windows.

Radiohead: House of Cards visualization video

Really cool use of visualization tools to create this music video for Radiohead's "House of Cards".

Check out this link to a different version on Google that lets you move the video image around while its playing. and the "making of" video that shows the laser scanners they used.

Radiohead just released a new video for its song "House of Cards" from the album "In Rainbows".

No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.

Watch the making-of video to learn about how the video was made and the various technologies that were used to capture and render 3D data

What Software do you use for Infographics?

OmniGraffle

A few readers have written emails to me asking about what software to use to create infographics.  My needs are pretty simple for my day job, so I only have a handful of tools that I use loaded onto my MacBook.  But the graphics I create are fairly simple, and don’t use massive amounts of data.

• OmniGraffle
• FreeMind
• MindNode
• Vector Designer
• Microsoft Office

Yes, I included MS Office in the list because there are some really cool things you can do with Excel and PowerPoint.  I’ll post some examples in the future.

What software do you use?

Post about your favorite software in the comments and share your “must have” software with everyone here.

When are you at risk online?

From the Mozilla website, and obviously a part of their sales pitch.  I picked up that the calendar arrangement of the squares is in fact correct for 2006.  Its getting the small things right that help make good infographics.

An independent study shows that, in 2006, IE users were vulnerable to online threats 78% of the time. Firefox users? Only 2%.

“At risk” defined as publicly available exploits with no patch. Source: “Internet Explorer users Unsafe for 284 Days in 2006” Brian Krebs, Washington Post, 1/4/2007