Comments on: Visualising Sensor data based on 3 dimensional spatial representation https://partnews.mit.edu/2014/05/14/visualising-sensor-data-based-on-3-dimensional-spatial-representation/ Treating newsgathering as an engineering problem... since 2012! Wed, 14 May 2014 17:02:25 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.2 By: Ethan https://partnews.mit.edu/2014/05/14/visualising-sensor-data-based-on-3-dimensional-spatial-representation/#comment-38678 Mon, 19 May 2014 19:52:06 +0000 http://partnews.brownbag.me/?p=4992#comment-38678 Jude, this is a very interesting area to explore. I think you’re identifying two topics worth pursuing: can 3D models make for more compelling storytelling, and is it helpful to plot sensor data in three dimensions? I think there’s a good bit of work already done on the former question. You can explore how people have used Google Maps 3D in different situations and see whether there are compelling journalistic use cases. I’d like to hear a bit more about why you felt it was important to create your own tool in this space rather than using some existing data and tools – I suspect the answer is that it’s important for people to be able to build these models themselves, ala OSM, but I’d like to hear you make the argument.

As for the question of visualizing sensors in 3D, I think there you’re in unexplored territory, which is very interesting. You should look at Joe Paradiso’s work on Doppellab, which looks at visualizing temperature and airflow within the Media Lab using a 3D model: http://www.aec.at/origin/en/2011/07/07/doppellab/

I think you’d benefit from finding some more data sets, particularly ones with good elevation data. If there aren’t those sets, you may want to ask whether 3D visualization of sensors is as relevant a problem as you think it is.

Nice work talking on an ambitious problem and producing some interesting and exciting new software.

]]>