Some Random Dude » san-francisco http://www.somerandomdude.com Some Random Dude is a blog by P.J. Onori that covers design & technology in the broadest sense possible. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:37:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Doug McCune maps crime in San Francisco where crime rate is… http://www.somerandomdude.com/2010/06/08/doug-mccune-maps-crime-in-san-francisco-where-crime-rate-is/ http://www.somerandomdude.com/2010/06/08/doug-mccune-maps-crime-in-san-francisco-where-crime-rate-is/#comments Wed, 09 Jun 2010 03:50:02 +0000 P.J. Onori http://somerandomdude.com/stream/tumblr/doug-mccune-maps-crime-in-san-francisco-where-crime-rate-is/

Doug McCune maps crime in San Francisco where crime rate is measured by elevation. Clever and informative. via FlowingData

]]> http://www.somerandomdude.com/2010/06/08/doug-mccune-maps-crime-in-san-francisco-where-crime-rate-is/feed/ 0 A Drive Down California Street – A Real-Time Visualization Project http://www.somerandomdude.com/2007/12/11/drive-down-california-street/ http://www.somerandomdude.com/2007/12/11/drive-down-california-street/#comments Tue, 11 Dec 2007 14:09:45 +0000 P.J. Onori http://www.somerandomdude.net/blog/design/drive-down-california-street/ A couple weeks ago, my wife and I took a drive through San Francisco. With us, we brought two laptops that recorded the drive through their webcams. Using Processing, the webcam video data was analyzed and reinterpreted into abstract visualizations. This project was a test-run of a larger project myself and a few friends are working on, but I thought it would be fun to show you what has been done thus far.

The concept behind this project was to take ordinary scenes from everyday life and turn them into something that would look completely alien, yet familiar enough to have the faintest semblance of normality in order for the viewer to digest what they saw. The data stream was too great for the application to read/analyze/interpret/output in absolute real time, so the videos appear to be sped up due to dropped frames. The size of the objects were based on the brightness in the relative area of the video, the colors of each shape mirrors the general color in that portion of the video. The captures were taken at night which is the reason for the strong contrast and bright colors.

Video From Passenger Side

A Drive Down California Street (Passenger’s Side View) from P.J. Onori on Vimeo.

The video above was the main video – I personally held the laptop up to the window while my partner in crime drove around downtown. The somewhat persistent blue-gray circles are the reflective glare of the laptop’s monitor against the side window. This definitely distracts from the overall aesthetics of the visualization, but considering how often I got confronted at stop lights, I think it was a good idea that I kept the window up.

Video From Driver Side

A Drive Down California Street (Driver’s Side View) from P.J. Onori on Vimeo.

The driver side video was given less attention – I essentially set another laptop down next to me and pointed the webcam towards the window. Since it was not right up to the window, the amount of light/form it pulled in was much less. I decided to give it a slightly different visual style than the passenger side visualizer.

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