Knowledge Visualization

From inequality to sustainability, many issues today are global and interconnected. But as such, responding to them individually can be overwhelming. Inspired by utopias, this research is based on the idea, that images and plans of the future are powerful guides for a collective response. But it seems that most people don’t often get to interact with such plans in detail.

Approaching this problem – an online news format came into focus, which could make complex 3D plans and visualizations more accessible to public discourse. To this aim, a set of methods were developed to simplify production of 3D in online news. As a result, a browser-based story template was designed, which lets users scroll through different perspectives of a 3D Scene, alongside text and other graphics.

Together with Hochparterre and Metron, articles were designed to provide a better understanding of large city planning projects with help of 3D. Based upon open-source code, the research is set up to help small institutions in sharing stories with complex 3D Scenes and extend the format without licencing concerns.

The project now invites everyone curious, writers, designers or coders to contribute content and help to extend the format with interactivity - within a public research or commercial form of cooperation.