Our world today is filled with all sorts of interesting data points, most of which we never see or even realize are there. Think of all the flights all over the world that happen everyday, or all the taxi rides to occur, not to mention the number of phone calls or internet activity that happens. All of these things have data associated with them that is, somewhere, recorded for posterity. Data visualization is nothing new, and sometimes it produces works that are breathtaking and cross over into art.

The BBC television show Britain From Above took all sorts satellite and air images, then mixed them with GPS and other data to produce a series of awesome photos and videos. Here are my favorites:

Air Traffic Over Britain

The Lights of Britain

Not to be outdone, FlightView and Wired magazine created this way cool Google map depicting the air traffic over the U.S. for a 24-hour period. Click here to go to the map.

And lastly, yet more airplanes! This one is also very cool. Watch the explosion of air traffic as the terminator line passes and day begins. You can also see just how less traveled South America and Africa are. Amazing.

I find this stuff to be fascinating and cool so I thought I'd share.

Comments (1) | PermaLink | Category: Art, Science and Technology
Posted by JP Frantz at Monday March 09, 2009 at 12:15 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

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