## Background ##

In spring this year, people in northern China experienced severe weather with extreme dangerous sand storm and air pollution. One of dangerous factors in air pollution is PM2.5, which at that time was 400 times over the most dangerous level defined by WHO.

However, PM2.5 data was not open to public in China until recently. The studio BestApp.us in Guangzhou, China collected and veirfied data from official sources, and opened API to public. Therefore I decided to build a website with visualization to help people easily find dangerous level in their own cities.

## Design 1 ##

Map visualization:

I got PM2.5 data of 74 cities in China with 496 air detection stations. Since the data not only includes PM 2.5 value but also contains air pollution with SO2, NO2, PM10, O3, the website will allow users to choose the which air pollutant they want to view.

Visualization Tool: TileMill, D3.js, Processing.js

## Design 2 ##

PM2.5 history data for each city in China. When users click on a label on the map, they can not only get the current PM2.5 value but also are able to scan PM2.5 history for the specified city.

## Tech ##

Server: Node.js, Express and MongoDB

Data: PM25.in

Github Repository: https://github.com/hhua/PM2.5

Notes from comments:

1. Cosm / Pachube open data for PM2.5
   
2. whether a map should be the main (or ONLY) entrance to the data

3. include some basic information about these pollutants and how to protect yourself (if possible) on the website. Accessible public service information would definitely be helpful

4. how you visualize over wide areas
5. Will you be able to zoom in/out, and thereby get a greater/lesser resolution of PM2.5 distribution

6. What is the important part of the data? How people want to see this way of visualization?

7. Immediate concerns include interpolating data across geographic features that aren’t well-categorized, which is a proven hard problem.  There’s also the interesting ethical question of providing people with data that indicates imminent or constant danger without also providing them a means of acting on it.

My plan for my capstone project is to construct a working, tangible version of the interactive novel concept I prototyped for my Interactivity Project. That said, my sketch looks an awful like (read: the same) as the sketches I posted in my Project 3 deliverable post. For an overview of my intentions, please visit the IMISPHYX IV project page, and for a continually updating list of prior art that’s inspired me, try this link.

I’ve iterated slightly on my goals for the project, based upon feedback from the class and also on my own daydreams, of which I tend to have a ton. Moving forward, I hope to accomplish the following things:

1. implement the reactivision prototype.
2. ditch the objects/props concept from the last iteration, and focus instead on illuminating the contrast that exists between the dialogue that occurs among characters and thoughts characters hold within them.
3. really push the way I display text upon the table to make it as engaging as possible.

I’m also still torn between using my own personal story, Imisphyx, for this project, or proceeding with a story that has already been told, and thereby at least allow people to compare the interactive version to the original, static version. This would also eliminate my need to worry about perfecting the story at the same time I’m perfecting my interaction — although it *is* arguable that evolving both story and presentation simultaneously is the best way to go.

If I were to shy away from using ‘Imisphyx’, I would like to revisit the Alfred Bester novel I was toying with in my original Project 3 sketch. What’s nice about The Demolished Man is that it deals heavily with the exact themes I’m trying to explore in my interactive piece : the tension between what’s happening inside somebody’s head and what they’re actually saying out loud. I think this story could allow me to play with interesting visualizations of text in the characters’ ‘first person’, ‘internal’ mode.

For example, below is a passage from the book where the murderer, Ben Reich, is trying to get a very annoying song stuck in his head, so that the telepathic cop, Linc Powell, can’t pry beyond it into Reich’s mind to discover his guilt.

A tune of utter monotony filled the room with agonizing, unforgettable banality. It was the quintessence of every melodic cliche Reich had ever heard. No matter what melody you tried to remember, it invariably led down the path of familiarity to “Tenser, Said The Tensor.” Then Duffy began to sing:

Eight, sir; seven, sir;
Six, sir; five, sir;
Four, sir; three, sir;
Two, sir; one!
Tenser, said the Tensor.
Tenser, said the Tensor.
Tension, apprehension,
And dissension have begun.

“Oh my God!” Reich exclaimed.

“I’ve got some real gone tricks in that tune,” Duffy said, still playing. “Notice the beat after `one’? That’s a semicadence. Then you get another beat after `begun.’ That turns the end of the song into a semicadence, too, so you can’t ever end it. The beat keeps you running in circles, like: Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun. RIFF. Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun. RIFF. Tension, appre—”

“You little devil!” Reich started to his feet, pounding his palms on his ears. “I’m accursed. How long is this affliction going to last?”

“Not more than a month.”

The description Bester provides of the nature of the song, the patterns it possesses, and it’s cyclical nature, lends itself to some really awesome interactive portrayals. On the table, one could envision Reich’s character object set to ‘internal’ mode, and suddenly emitting these endless spirals of the annoying, mindworm tune. Perhaps, every time Linc tries to pry into his head, his thoughts are physically deflected on the screen by the facade of Reich’s textual whirlpool. See below:

My goal is to integrate hardware and software for this project. I recently came back from Beijing, China, and the trip left a footprint on my heart. I really had a great time, and I really want to document it in one way or another. This new idea has not deviate from my original idea of creating a map of Pittsburgh, and a tracking system of where a person has been to in the city. My original idea is to make a map of Pittsburgh, install tons of LED lights behind it, and light them up one by one (or in small groups) as a user visits more places. So the more places a user visits, the brighter the map gets. However, I need to be realistic with the time frame and the skills that I have. Getting the first prototype of the hardware done will take me a lot of time, and I am not entirely sure if it will exemplify the concept I have in mind. For this project, I don’t want to only create a demo — it really has to be a poem of some sort.

I want to create an interactive experience between a user and a map. I am planning on laser cutting a map of Beijing. The goal is for a user to be able to learn more about a specific place in the city, where he can touch (or interact with the map in other ways), and photos or information of the places would show up. I have a collection of photos I took while in Beijing, and I think it will be very memorable to be able to document the trip this way. I have not exactly decided on what types of interaction I would like to do – right now, I am thinking either the Kinect or light sensors. I want to utilize the tools I have learned from the past projects and use them to create something beautiful and meaningful.

Here are some photos from the trip!!

In order to start playing around with branching structures I implemented diffusion limited aggregation in rhino python (rhino is a 3d modeling program).  As long as the generating algorithm doesn’t require some insane speed I think it makes sense to do stuff with rhinoPython since everything is already in cad format and therefore much easier to get into the manufacture process. The following is a 3d DLA with particles being fired from some random point  on a circle to another random point.  If the particle comes within “stick range” of a node of the existing structure it stops and is added to the structure.  All of the branches from the root to that node get  a little thicker.  Clearly something more involved than little tubes would be required to make something manufacturable. I am not really sure the best way to do this. Maybe some sort of volume sweeping with spheres? Or maybe make really course meshes and run smoothing algorithms.

Really I would rather do something with simulating heat conduction and fluids (with heat transfer) over 3d meshes and have them grow so that nodes on the mesh are greedy for cold areas and release inhibiting agents to keep there neighbors from steeling there coolth.  Like corals, sort of. But I don’t think I can do that in a few weeks. I know very little about heat transfer, and just beginning to learn navier-stokes equation and related concepts used for computational fluid mechanics. Maybe I can sort of approximate this with the particle DLA?

We also have several difficulties in getting this thing made in Aluminum and anodized black in time for the final crit.
Lost wax slurry casting, 3D printing, anodization, extrusion, we are going to make a functional sculpture of lightning that will be big and heavy.

First, follow this link to Gigapan Time Machine.

I have been entranced by this interactive timelapse of the sun for years, and there is enough detail in each of the layers that I still haven’t found all of the interesting events yet.  For my capstone project, I would like to augment the interaction in some way that allows users to better view multiple frequency bands simultaneously.  Many of the events can be understood and appreciated more fully by watching them unfold across multiple frequency bands.  The current method of selecting them is somewhat clumsy, though, and only one video can be viewed at a time.

I’m still trying to come up with a good way for users to manipulate and blend the frequency visualizations in a way that decreases confusion rather than increases it.  My current plan is to implement a sort of magnifying glass that can either zoom in locally or reveal a different frequency than the background layer so that the user can examine points of origin and dissipation while the video plays.  A still from the video might look something like this:

Another option might be to allow the user to paint his or her own viewing windows in different frequency bands, as shown below.

I’m currently leaning away from this path, though, because I worry that painting static image windows isn’t a good idea for a video that is constantly in motion, especially since the sun is constantly turning to the right.

Any feedback is welcome!