The Art of the Visible

Numbers are central to engineers and engineering - - yet the brain finds it easier to process information if it is presented as an image rather than as just densely packed numbers. Visualization deals with the inhuman scale of the information we must deal with and the need to present it at the very human scale of what the eye can see. The right hemisphere of the brain recognizes shapes and colors. The left side of the brain processes information in an analytical and a sequential way is more active when people read text or look at a spreadsheet. Looking through a numerical table takes a tot of mental effort, but information presented visually can be grasped in a few seconds. The brain identifies patterns, proportions, and relationships to make instant subliminal comparisons.

Data visualization is emerging as a new field - - data visualization specialists that combine engineering, computer science, mathematics, artistic design, and a little bit of storytelling (“Everything begins with a story” - - Joseph Campbell). What you end up with is something part art and part information - - the technology of the future will allow individuals and organizations to effectively combine the picturesque and the informative. Something that is intellectually enlightening yet can potentially hang in the Whitney or the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Nathan Yau of UCLA thinks more in terms of information presentation as storytelling - - the compelling narrative that is something between textbook and novel. Yau and others discuss this in the book Beautiful Data: The Stories Behind Elegant Data Solutions (2009).

The globalization of ideas, data, and information combined with advances in technology have produced immense quantities of data (this year we are expected to create 1,200 exabytes of data - - up from 150 exabytes in 2005). Many governments are belatedly coming around to the idea of putting more information - - such as crime figures, maps, details of public service - - into the public domain. People can then reuse this information in novel ways to build businesses and hold elected officials to account. Companies that grasp these new opportunities, or provide the tools for others to do so, will prosper. Business intelligence is one of the fastest-growing parts of the software industry. Examples include Jeffrey Heer of Stanford and his work on U.S. census data (http://www.sense.us/) and Ben Fry, an independent designer, creator of a map of the 26 million miles of roads and hghways in the United States (http://benfry.com/).

The following link - - http://flare.prefuse.org/apps/job_voyager provides an example of the data visualization tools that are available. This particular graphic illustrates the stacked time series of reported occupations in the U.S. labor force from 1850 to 2000. Launch the full screen version - - it is in alphabetical order - - so find engineer.