Urban traffic audio-visualization
This brought a smile to my face and I had to post it. This is an infoviz but with another dimension added — audio. As the user hovers over areas on the map (controllable in size by the user too) they hear an audio representation of the traffic. This is a great idea because of the different ways you can encode information into audio — volume, pitch, tone, etc. For instance, if the vehicle distribution is tilted more towards larger trucks or vehicles, the low frequencies (bass) can dominate, where as smaller roads where small cars, motorcycles, etc are found you can let the high frequency sounds dominate. Traffic flow could be done with volume, etc. Combine that with the visualization of traffic nodes and bottlenecks, and you have a fairly sophisticated interface for conveying information. Imagine using this in a DOT control room for instance.
Read an in-depth interview about the project here.
In what other areas can we utilize this approach?
Cascade on Wheels: Traffic Mixer from steph thirion on Vimeo
Here is another one he did, sans audio, showing car traffic data in Madrid. Pretty sophisticated data mapping! I’m impressed. Unlike most dataviz projects, this combines nice aesthetics & what appears to be meaningful data.
