This is a simplified version of the S.O.VIZv1.0 (page hasn’t been updated in a while) interface I’ve been working on for some time now. This is a desktop application which visualizes much of the publicly available data describing the orbits of “satellites” (any man-made object larger than a softball) in Earth orbit, and enables users to explore this data.
When the app is launched, it fetches the full TLE data and SATCAT via the Space Track API, and saves it locally as a few JSON documents from which the app then reads from to create the visuals (with openFrameworks).
The visualization shows each satellite’s apogee and perigee as a red and green point (respectively), ordered chronologically by launch date around a circle representing the Earth (at scale to the data), going clockwise from the top (90º).
The app allows users to zoom between high, medium, and low earth orbits. The arcs which appear in low earth orbit describe the number of satellites launched within each decade. Clicking on an arc filters the visualization so that users can see a specific decade in greater detail.
Demo:
High-res Snapshots (open separately for detail):
Full catalog, high earth orbit (link):
Full catalog, medium earth orbit (link):
Full catalog, low earth orbit with arcs describing number of satellite launched within each decade since Sputnik 1 in 1957 (link):
1990-1999, low earth orbit (link):
1990-1999, medium earth orbit (link):
1990-1999, high earth orbit (link):
It might be my wifi issues but the images are not loading – only the movie.
As we discussed in class, it’s very attractive and there’s an interesting “story ” about the averaging actually being made up not of in-tact satellites, but fragments.
What could you do with this? what did you take away from doing this and getting feedback?
As you said in the text it’s something you’ve been working on for a while (how long is a while?). So what new thoughts did you bring to this assignment?
How is it interlocked to other systems?
Ah, the images not loading is likely because they’re are so huge (to show detail). I’ve edited the post to include direct links, hopefully those work!
I’ve been working on this for over a year. What I showed in class was a very stripped down version of the full-fledged interface which includes a lot more functionality… (I would show the full thing if it weren’t for technical difficulties moving between operating systems. I will definitely try to sort this out and update my site ASAP.) This was a first-time exercise for me in many ways, which is also why this has taken so long. This assignment helped me to simplify the whole thing for a single focused purpose — as a map of a system; a visualization of an invisible infrastructure that we rely on every day.
What could be done with this is something I’ve been struggling to figure out. I went into this with just the aim of making an infographic simply illustrating the vast spacial scale and perhaps some of the interesting tidbits about this dataset that you and others in class seemed to find most compelling (the amount of debris, their functions, etc). Eventually I decided it needed to be interactive to aid the complexity/scale of the visual… I then found myself wanting to create something that would bridge the space between an analytical tool (in the sense that, unlike an infographic, I’m not tailoring the data to make any one point in particular, but rather I’m creating a platform where the user is free to answer their own questions about the data) and an aesthetic experience (as a form of entertainment and exploration).
At this point, considering the feedback from class, I’m struggling to decide if:
– this isn’t worth any more of my time and I should just try to finalize it and move on
– take its presentation to the next level; perhaps it needs a more immersive format, as a large scale projection with a motion interface or something similar, to help emphasize how compelling the large spacial scale of the satellites can be; or is this best kept as a downloadable desktop application?
– take this back to being just an infographic, focusing on just one or two of the most compelling aspects of this dataset (as a visualization of a massive piece of invisible infrastructure, or emphasizing the potential environmental impacts of the debris)