Thoughts from Rome
February 10, 2008 – 5:39 amDay number two in Rome and my legs are already exhausted. Thankfully (in an odd sort of way) many of the things I still want to see are closed on Sunday.
Most of Saturday was focused on a tour of the Forum, the Colosseum, and the Palatino. As our team somewhat rightly accuses, I’m never quite able to separate from work. As I was wandering through the Forum I found my mind wandering back to the conference. Wouldn’t it be great, I thought, if the map makers would have taken even some of the principles we learned from Bruce Daniel and John Grimwade into account? Then wouldn’t it be awesome if I had information graphics available to me like those from Karl Gude and Nigel Holmes that could bring the hidden, many-layered stories to life? Then I thought about the depth and dimension brought by Bryan Christie and Tony O’Driscoll in their discussions on the use of 3D. What really struck me, though, was the opportunity for a combination of these and other techniques. What if, intead of the clunky-though-modern audio tour, I had 3D glasses with GPS enabled? They could guide me on a path of only the things that is of specific interest to me (thanks John), using only visuals instead of overcoming the language barrier (thanks Bruce), with selectable pop-up information in audio, still frame, and video (thanks Karl, Nigel, and Lee) based on where I am and what I’m looking at, and remakes of the original area as seen over the centuries optionally super-imposed over the real word to show the original granduer while standing firmly in the present (thanks Bryan and Tony). Then I started to wonder what if you could take that same experience and provide it to those who might never be so lucky as to make it to Rome (thanks Artrain)?
Then it occurred to me that this is the promise of VizThink…to bring together a diverse group of people who all believe in the power of visualization for communication and learning yet who might never have heard or thought about each other’s approaches, and together they might be able to dream of and achieve more than was ever possible before they met.
I can’t wait to see all of the amazing things that come out of this community in the coming months and years. What interesting combinations would you like to see? Are there other ways the trip to the Forum could have been enhanced with visual thinking? Leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments below. Viva Roma, and Viva VizThink.
