As I mentioned in my last blog post, I love particle systems. However, in my last prototype, I could only visualize about 10,000 particles. Once this limit was exceeded, the frame rate of the visualization dropped. Unfortunately, since I’m not an expert in coding, I couldn’t fix it. Because particle systems look better with more particles, I wanted to continue exploring the idea. But this time, not with code, but with TouchDesigner.
What is TouchDesigner?
TouchDesigner is software used by artists and developers to create visual effects and interactive multimedia projects. It allows for the creation of real-time graphics, animations, and interactive installations by connecting various visual and audiovisual elements. With TouchDesigner, you can create complex visual representations by simply connecting building blocks or nodes. I delved into the subject of „Projection Mapping“ in TouchDesigner and found it enjoyable. The software also allows for the creation of really cool particle systems, which is perfect for my project. That’s why I created my next prototypes with TouchDesigner.
Visualization
How do I want to visualize everything? I’m not exactly sure. Classic data visualizations mostly consist of conventional charts. These include bar, column, pie, line charts, and so on. That’s not what I want. I want to give it an artistic touch. That’s why I’m using particle systems. Since I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, I just started experimenting, watching a few tutorials, and following them. The following three visualizations were created:
Although these visuals look pretty cool, there’s now a big problem. The issue is: how can I use these to visualize data so that the data’s message is clear and quickly recognizable? Here are my ideas. For the Tornado, I could use the diameter of the vortex. The larger the diameter, the greater the environmental impact of a certain behavior, for example. For the Galaxy, I could use the rotation and size. The faster it rotates and the smaller it is, the worse the data is. For the Lava Flow, I would simply use the flows. The higher the environmental impact, the more lava flows there are until it becomes just one large lava (water)fall. Nonetheless, I will continue experimenting with data visualizations in TouchDesigner, simply because it’s cool and fun. Cheers!
