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DB Query Becomes Browseable In Virtual World
Jani Pirkola writes to tell us that Green Phosphor's new project "Glasshouse" allows users to take database queries or spreadsheets and create 3D representations in a virtual world. Man what I wouldn't give to mash my level 80 death knight up with some of the ugly joins I have run across in the past. "Users can see data, and drill into it; re-sort it; explore it interactively - all from within a virtual world. Glasshouse produces graphs which are avatars of the data itself. We've tailored the system for the use of biotech companies, specifically for drug discovery and development. Dr. David Resuehr, a molecular biologist, recently joined Green Phosphor as our Chief Scientist."
3D data graphing over Second-Lifeish CG landscapes. Groundbreaking.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
But the real question, of course, is whether or not a teenage hacker girl can successfully use this to navigate your data and fix your TPS reports before the velociraptors eat you all.
Nerf distinct, it's OP!
But I currently work on an app that the current CEO of Green Phosphor, Ben Lindquist worked on back in 200X. For various reasons I'm not going to name anything, but let's just say his lack of commenting on many of the stuff he wrote is enough to drive me to drinking. I can't rag on him too bad for not having an IDE that let you know if assignments or private functions went unused, though.
Seriously, the lack of commenting and hard-coded paths are a thing of the past I hope for his projects.
Anyways, on topic, this is really neat, but unlike sound visualizers, is there going to be a consistent, concrete approach to the that industry professionals can extract information with? It isn't helpful to visualize this flat data if the standard for visualizing changes willy-nilly.
I blame CSI for generating interest in these tools. Flashiness at the expense of clarity and efficiency.
Now, just add an animated avatar removing its sunglasses and we're set.
I just pooped your party.
I hate Death Knights - they are almost always terribad players who think they can tank because they are wearing plate armor. "I'll just throw on frost presence and we'll go."
As if.
More seriously, the point about visualisation of data is well made. How many people who think they are information literate produce incomprehensible spreadsheets and graphs that conceal reality? However, the example on the web page (oil production) is a terrible one - very hard to read, unnecessary wodges of solid color, everything that upsets Tufte. To make a project like this really work, I think they are going to have to concentrate on what to leave out, as much as what to leave in. And silly avatars don't cut it. Learn from Clippy, guys. I am sure that there is a right way to use data to virtual reality 3D modelling, but, and I can't say this too strongly, when marketing demands more color, more widgets and exciting background sound tracks, tell them to go fornicate off. Thousands of data analysts will thank you.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Another idea from Douglas Adams stolen and put forward as original.
No boss, I'm not playing rpg games at work, I'm working on my quarterly sales report
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
What drops?
Has someone been watching TRON? "Bring in logic probe!"
AT&ROFLMAO
This is for the CEO of a small bioitech to pitch his shill to the VC, hard to imagine a molecular biologist seeing any need for it...
I can't help but notice that most of the objects are purple.
Users can see data, and drill into it; re-sort it; explore it interactively - all from within a virtual world.
Can you shoot at a stock prices chart until it explodes in a huge fireball? Can you chop it up with an axe? Can you take a dump on it? I can see some value in this after all
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Now just set up a file system that looks like buildings.
From the article:
"First off I believe that visualization of money in/money out could have turned authorities on to the fishy accounting Enron was up to, and caught them earlier. Perhaps better visualization would have revealed Madoffâ(TM)s ponzi scheme as well."
Hahahahahahaha....hmmm...maybe?...nah!....
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Priceless!
It works, surprisingly well, but it really needs a richer scripting environment than Second Life provides to really produce good feedback. Also, it would benefit from having the ability to manage and maintain the parameters of the display outside the 3d world, because editing and retyping a database query in "chat" is not pretty.
.. always seem fun and then never seem to go anywhere. Anyone else remember psDooM? Blast away unwanted processes with a shotgun? Sounds great, right?
Well.. turns out, when you actually want to terminate a process, Windows Task Manager, or ps & kill are vastly more efficient, effective, and obvious tools to do the job.
This company doing the same thing, but specialized to financial market data: www.aqumin.com.
Doug Gwyn's Adventure Shell added a layer of Adventure-like syntactic sugar to the regular Bourne Shell. It wasn't terribly useful, but it was fun for 15 minutes, and since it was written in shell, you could hack on it yourself, and everything worked relatively normally.
If I were using the 3D visual interface, I'd expect my data to be slightly out of focus and to get carried off by pterodactyls if I didn't pay enough attention to everything at once...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"Man what I wouldn't give to mash my level 80 death knight up with some of the ugly joins I have run across in the past."
Still can't get laid, huh.
It cam be more than that when local frames of reference and their magnitudes along individual axis are considered. In other words X+,X- (same with other axis) with respect to point of local origin can represent different things. Add in other qualities like color, texture, transparency, and even sound (everyone neglects sound) along with positional relationship to other frames as well as time and the information density can be higher than 2D
The main question for 3D representations are the prevention of information overload, and focusing on the relevant to the task at hand.
I think we'll see a growth with this as 3D hardware matures.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
They are if the company's small, private, and doesn't have the concept of a "golden parachute" for anyone.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Isn't that what data warehousing is for, OLAP - Online Analytical Processing? Slicing data into cubes in a multi-dimensional space? Which has only been around for two+ decades?
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
I deal with Second Life every day, I work on specs and code relating to the client and even the open-source server components and even I think this is stupid. It's crap like this which makes me post under Anonymous Coward.
"Man what I wouldn't give to mash my level 80 death knight up with some of the ugly joins I have run across in the past."
You are pathetic. Are you so starved for approval that you have to "offhandedly" mention your MMO characters in articles that have nothing to do with games? You should stop.
They are if the company's small, private, and doesn't have the concept of a "golden parachute" for anyone.
But, when I worked for a giant publicly held US company we had that "golden thingy" whether we liked it or not! Oh, wait, that was a golden shower.
Never mind.
I don't think that's part of the solution.
In fact, if you put a boat in a goat, pretty soon you're going to have a bunch of precipitate to deal with.
I used neural networks to categorize data first.. read yourself.