Adventures
in Data Visualization
Workshop

One year of Traffic data from 6 sensors in 105’408 hourly records - shown as lines, representing 43’616’740 cars or 174’466’960 wheels. Virtual Reality is interesting for large datasets, using the extra space beyond the rectangular page borders that limit data visualisation.

Clash visualises traffic data recorded on June 22nd 2017 going North through Grancia, in Ticino. The project combines the accuracy of data visualization with the VR technology to let the user experience the data in a new immersive environment.

Climate Sextant is a multi sensorial immersive VR experience to explore air pollution in Lugano, Switzerland. Born as an experiment around the possibilities of data visualization in Virtual Reality, the project propose to the user an “empty space” where data is represented only by colors and sounds.

Climate Sextant shows the monthly concentration of PM10 in the Lugano area, in the 2016, correlated to the precipitation level and the temperature. Darker is the sky, higher is concentration of PM10 in the air. Higher is the sound of the rain, more intense are the precipitations. A specific sound identify each season, to help the user to navigate the space. By exploring the immersive environment, the person is enabled to understand the direct correlation among the data.

Using a panorama of the milky way this experiment allows you to see the effect on light pollution in a direct and emotional way. While basking in the beauty of the thousands of stars a transparent layer will vary his opaqueness based on the light pollution data from OASI and a artificial voice will tell the day of the week of the current data point.

Ticino, southern part of Switzerland, “die Sonnenstube”, the place where the weather is good and the sky is blue. But it’s a blue sky that hides invisible threats, in the summer the levels of Ozone are often over the acceptable limit, and PM10 and NO2 are also there, secretly harming our lungs. Summer Sky it’s a virtual sensorial experience that allows the user to see and feel the presence of such substances in the seemingly clean air.

The user finds himself in a simplistic virtual representation of Lugano, floating over the lake surrounded by four objects also floating in the air. The objects, composed by 3 ellipsoids, are a representation of the harmful gases and dust present in the sky and they move towards the user trapping him in a fog of shapes and sounds. Data collected from oasi.ti.ch allows to shape the objects according to the intensity of the threat. This software analyzes data from the last week and depicts this information by throwing one wave of objects towards the user for each day of the week.

Summer Sky is completely web based, it has been created with HTML, CSS and javascript, using d3.js library (gathering data from oasi.ti.ch) and a-frame library (3D and VR experience).