Glom: Information Agglomerates-an Organic Representation for Quantitative Information Matthew Richard Grenby BA, English and American Literature (June 1993) Harvard University Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences School of Architecture and Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology June 1998 © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1998 All rights reserved. Author: Program in Media Arts and Sciences May 8, 1998 Certified by: John Maeda Assistant Professor of Design and Computation MIT Media Laboratory Thesis Advisor Accepted by: Stephen A. Benton Chair Departmental Committee on Graduate Students Program in Media Arts and Sciences Glom: Information Agglomerates-an Organic Representation for Quantitative Information Matthew Richard Grenby Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences School of Architecture and Planning On May 8th, 1998 In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Massachusetts Institute of Technology Abstract There exists an imbalance between the sheer mass of information we feel responsible for and the tools we use to help us make sense of this informa- tion. This thesis describes a new approach to representing large bodies of quantitative information called GLOMS. These information agglomerates take advantage of the user's innate visual faculties and familiarity with everyday objects to provide an interactive, visual and computational rep- resentation that facilitates retention of the salient features of a given data set. The defining characteristics of a GLOM representation are intro- duced through a series of prototypes and the description of a large con- trolled system: BLITZGLOM. This system visualizes data garnered from the web-based game BLITZ that was created for this thesis. Thesis Advisor: John Maeda Assistant Professor of Design and Computation This research was sponsored by the Things That Think Consortium Glom: Information Agglomerates-an Organic Representation for Quantitative Information Matthew Richard Grenby The following people served as readers for this thesis: Reader: William J. Mitchell Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning Massachusetts Institute of Technology Reader: Hiroshi Ishii Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Acknowledgments ...........................................................5 Introduction ...................................................................7 Motivation . .8 Accomplishments. .9 Thesis Scope and Overview . .10 Related Work..................................................................12 Sandia Labs . .17 Intel Research. .20 Chernoff Faces . .24 First Prototypes ..............................................................26 Gradus . .26 Munsell . .32 StockGLOM . .32 Chicago Tribune . .37 BLITZ ...........................................................................38 Introduction . .38 Related Work and Meta-Design . .44 First Prototypes: GLOP . .50 Implementation. .51 Level Editor/Level Graphics . .52 GLOM ...........................................................................58 Introduction . .58 GLOM characteristics . .59 Implementation: BLITZGLOM . .81 The Layers. .85 The Axes . .85 Conclusion .....................................................................88 Summary . .88 Future Directions . .91 Appendix A: Interview with a BLITZ Player........................92 Appendix B: Game Statistics ............................................101 Bibliography...................................................................139 1 Acknowledgments I would like to thank the readers of this thesis, Professor Ishii and Dean Mitchell for their time and insight. This thesis and the work it comprises was not created in a vacuum; it would not have been possible without the help and understanding of many others. First, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Profes- sor John Maeda. For all my peculiarities, there are only a few people whom I feel really understand my goals and ambitions, John is one of them. I am indebted for his unfailing assistance and faith from the days before there was any reason to believe I could do the things that needed to be done. Next, I would like to thank the other inaugural members of the Aesthetics and Computation group. Reed, Tom, David and Chloe: it’s been an interesting and rewarding ride. Thank you for all your enthusiasm and for putting up with my naïveté. I would also like to thank the urops in ACG, especially the Doctor, Jarhead, and Melissa for all your help and hard work. Thanks too to those I could always turn to for help or just to take my mind off things for a while: the crew in NECSYS. Mas, Jon, Will you are the salt of the earth. I would also like to send my appreciation out to those on the second floor who always treated me with professionalism and a smile: Santina, Laurie, Linda, Deb...thank you. Thanks too to Ellen for helping me publicize BLITZ! GLOM:Information Agglomerates 5 For suggesting I apply to the Media Lab when I did and for helping me to do so, Bob Stein. For directly or indirectly making it all possible, Nicholas Negroponte. For putting up with our need for Lebensraum, the boys of TMG: Brygg, Matt, Scott, and the most talented cantakerous designer-boy I know–D. For adapting his PERL server to feed the StockGLOM project with cur- rent market information, Jon Orwant. For providing the environment that made Gradus possible and for giving me the freedom to continue work on and publicize it, Art Center College. For organizing and supporting my part in the Tribune project, Glorianna Davenport, Ron MacNeil, and the editors, reporters, photographers and videographers at the Chicago Tribune who worked with us. For enduring my persistent programming questions and for passing on various gems of wisdom, Reed Kram, Doug Soo, Rob Poor, John Underkoffler, Phillip Tiongson, Scott Brave, Chloe Chao, Matt Gorbet, Christopher Kline, Nelson Minar, Jon Orwant, David Small, Tom White, Brygg Ullmer. For support, Tony, Connie, Elizabeth, Barbara. Kudos to my roommates for putting up with me. Love to my parents who have always supported me however crazy the endeavor. Wulfie: “woof!” In memory of Rosita Grenby. May 1998 Cambridge, Massachusetts GLOM:Information Agglomerates 6 2 Introduction The artist became the foundation on which progress in the recon- struction of life could advance beyond the frontiers of the all-seeing eye and the all-hearing ear. Thus a picture was no longer an anec- dote nor a lyric poem nor a lecture on morality nor a feast for the eye but a sign and symbol of this new conception of the world. (Lissitzky, 1920) The purpose of this thesis is to identify new visual techniques to be employed in the representation of quantitative information. Three years shy of the new millennium, the world finds itself awash amid the over- whelming mass of implicit and explicit streams of data. Sensor technolo- gies-our augmented senses of seeing and hearing-and processor technologies have improved at an exponential rate. In combination with an increasing level of connectivity, these technologies provide us with and give us access to a historically unprecedented volume of raw information. Our ability to process this flow of information depends largely on innova- tive software tools. Not thirty years have passed since the introduction of new and powerful tools such as the electronic spreadsheet and the rela- tional database. These tools were developed to streamline the flow of information processing. In this domain, they have enjoyed enormous suc- cess. At the same time, the approach to information visualization that this type of tool demonstrates falls short in many respects, particularly in leveraging off our enormous innate abilities to process visual, i.e. pictorial, information. GLOM:Information Agglomerates 7 As the thesis title suggests, our efforts have focused on the identification of organic techniques for the visual representation of information. By organic we refer to methodologies that are characterized by a. lifelike motion, b. agglomerations or grouped masses of atomic components. We choose to employ organic techniques because these kinds of techniques have yet to be invented for or implemented at a significant scale in this domain of information visualization. We ask the question: can an organic approach to the visual organization and display of quantitative data be identified and implemented? In striving to answer this question, we have grounded our thesis research in the creation of a series of small-scale pro- totypes. Individually, these prototypes feature different techniques. As a series, these prototypes share a common theme in that they all are working examples of an organic approach to information visualization. In addition, we have striven to demonstrate that the organic approach to information visualization is versatile. To this end, the prototypes have been designed to represent bodies of raw data from different domains. Drawing from our experiences with the prototype applications, the thesis advances the organic approach to information representation through the description of a large-scale, work in progress implementation of these con- cepts: BLITZGLOM. The completed companion system that generates the data for the BLITZGLOM representation is also considered in detail. Before proceeding, it is important to note that the work described in this thesis is the product of a close collaboration between the author and Pro- fessor John