The amount of data that’s out in the world is absolutely amazing and the problem is becoming less about getting the data than it is about understanding it. It’s great to see projects like the one below that follows 300,000 Norwegians move around Norway and beyond based off of tax return information.
Every time I see something like this I can’t help but think about how to get data like this into video games in a meaningful way.
Created over “a couple of months of evenings after putting the kids to bed,” each person becomes a line on a 3-D map, explored through an ever-changing camera perspective. The effectiveness is in the subtlety: Rather than simply travel from point A to point B, each mover actually fades out as they reach their destination. And rather than showing us a full speed “Pachinko machine” of information, Westvang slows things down, crops, and curates the content.
