Fly Through Your Computer
Visual Representations of Data
May Soon Be a Lot Less Confusing
June 23, 2006
Ever wonder why, 12 years after Michael Douglas wandered through a virtual filing cabinet and got all steamed up in there with Demi Moore, in the movie "Disclosure," we still can't do that? (Rummage through virtual filing cabinets, I mean.)
The closest we get to virtualization is when we play around with games such as SimCity, where you build and run your own city. Or online virtual worlds like Second Life. These mimic, visually, the real world, and while they may not exactly resemble our ordinary surroundings, it's a simple idea to grasp.
But visualizing data is a different beast: Instead of trying to make a digital replica, the idea is to use computers to turn data into something easier to see, sort and analyze. Instead of looking at last year's sales data in boring spreadsheets, say, you could view them as a three-dimensional city, which you could walk through using an avatar that resembles your Great Aunt Martha.
Leaving aside whether you would want to look like your Great Aunt Martha, I think we have an answer as to why we're not donning special gloves and pulling drawers, if you'll pardon the expression, like Michael Douglas. There's no real point in turning a real-world filing cabinet into a digital one because it doesn't make handling the data any easier.
But why haven't more imaginative uses of data visualization caught on, either? The answer, says Andrew Vande Moere, a lecturer at the University of Sydney's Centre of Design Computing and Cognition, is simple: Interfaces aren't up to the task. We're fine with "literal" transcriptions of our world into computer worlds, but we're not very good at grasping digital metaphors beyond the occasional folder and desktop. "Most implementations" of data visualization, says Mr. Vande Moere, "seem to confuse people more than help them." The result: The Internet is littered with the corpses of worthy efforts that didn't catch on, from turning your desktop into something approaching your living room, to maps where peaks and valleys represent different data.
There are a few things out there that try to break free of the dull monotony of lists, hierarchies and trees of folders. At the very least, brainstorming applications such as Mind Manager (
www.mindjet.com) help you create spidery images of your thoughts called mind maps. While these programs have their fans (myself among them), they start getting cumbersome just at the point you need them most: when you want to step back and survey the data you've gathered, to get a bird's-eye view of what you've got. Which leads me to 3D Topicscape, a Windows-only program that does exactly that.
3D Topicscape, launched by longtime Hong Kong resident Roy Grubb last month, looks like a primitive airplane simulator (it is available for a free 60-day trial from
www.topicscape.com; the full version costs $50). You float below blue skies across endless green terrain, in the middle of which stand cone-shaped mountains of varying sizes. These mountains have labels on them, corresponding to either ideas or folders.
Mountains can be connected to each other as parent and child -- terms Topicscape uses -- much like a folder and subfolder on your computer, or a topic and subtopic in a mind map. But instead of having to move through folders or thoughts one list or branch at a time, you can use your cursor to fly above these mountains, to search for particular ideas or merely to survey the mass of data you've collected. It's a better way to see and organize large collections of folders and files. No longer do you have to double click on a folder to see all the subfolders contained within it, then reverse engines to look at another folder. In Topicscape, all your folders are laid out like small mountains before you.
But 3D Topicscape works as a mind mapper too -- creating a spider web-like image of a topic, where subbranches appear instead as smaller mountains. Each child (topic or folder) can have multiple parents. In other words, it can be linked to several larger folders. Being able to save a file in several different mountains means you're much freer to assemble ideas ("how to build a better igloo"), projects ("purchase of igloo materials"), or themes ("daft projects").
It isn't perfect. I found the linking between mountains a bit confusing, especially when I created loose links or assigned mountains to multiple parents. And although the software was remarkably stable and relatively intuitive, it's still a niche area that requires the user to invest quite a bit of time and effort. That said, it's definitely a liberating experience to be able to fly around your computer. It would also, in all probability, make a better movie than "Disclosure."
在电脑里飞翔
我一直很纳闷，在12年前上映的电影《叛逆性骚扰》(Disclosure)中，迈克尔?道格拉斯(Michael Douglas)已经能在虚拟文件柜里来去自如、获得所有与其对手黛米?摩尔(Demi Moore)有关的秘密了，为什么12年后的今天，我们仍然做不到这一点呢？（我指的是在虚拟的文件柜中来回翻找。）
让我们感觉离虚拟化世界最近的恐怕是在玩《模拟城市》(SimCity)之类游戏的时候了。你可以在这款游戏中建设和管理自己的城市。再就是诸如游戏《第二生命》(Second Life)这样的网上虚拟世界。这些游戏在视觉上模仿了现实世界，尽管同我们的日常环境可能并不完全相同，但还是容易理解的。
不过数字的虚拟化完全是两码事了：它不是进行数字化的复制，而是要用电脑将数据转变为更容易查看、分类和分析的东西。你不用再去从枯燥的数据表上查看去年的销售额，而是可以彷佛置身一座立体的城市里、像著名的玛莎大嫂那样东瞅瞅、西看看了。
先不考虑你是否愿意自己看起来像玛莎大嫂，我想我们还可以回答为什么我们为什么能像迈克尔?道格拉斯那样不必戴特殊手套、拉开抽屉就解决问题了。将现实世界中的文件柜转变为数字文件柜并没什么重要意义，因为它不会让数据处理更加简单。
但数据虚拟化直到现在为何没有得到更富想象力的应用呢？悉尼大学(University of Sydney)设计计算与认知中心讲师安德鲁?范德?莫艾尔(Andrew Vande Moere)说，答案很简单：界面不能满足任务的需要。我们对现实世界与电脑世界进行“字面上”的转换还可应付，但除了件夹或桌面之外，我们并不擅长掌握数字化隐含的其他意义。范德?莫艾尔说，所实现的大多数数据虚拟化成果似乎并未带来帮助，反而让人们更加困惑。结果是，互联网上可以见到许多虽有价值却无人喝彩的成果，有的是从将桌面变成象起居室一样的设置，有的是对地图进行数字化，将高山、峡谷什么的转换成数据。
双语阅读
? Loose Wire: Fly Through Your Computer 有几个程序试图突破千篇一律的文件夹列表、分层和树状结构式的应用。比如，Mind Manager (
www.mindjet.com)等突发奇想的应用程序就能帮助你把想法建成一个叫做思维导图的蛛网状图形。尽管这些程序都有各自的爱好者（我就是其中一个），但在你最需要它们的时候，它们却都变得相当繁琐：当你想退回去研究一下你搜集的数据，或是想鸟瞰一下你的成果时就会这样。这让我选择了3D Topicscape，一个非常适合这种情况下的基于Windows的程序。
3D Topicscape是上个月由久住香港的罗伊?格拉布(Roy Grubb)推出的，看起来就像一个原始的飞机模拟器（在
www.topicscape.com上可下载免费试用60天的版本，完整版的价格为50美元）。你漂浮在蓝天下无边无际的绿色大地上，周围是大大小小的锥形山峰。山的上面都有标签，对应著各种创意或是文件夹。
山峰之间可以象父母和孩子那样彼此建立联系（“Topicscape”就用了这样的术语），就如同你电脑上的文件夹或子文件夹，或是思维导图中的主题和子主题一样。不过现在不是一次仅能进入一个文件夹或创意的列表或分支中了，你可以用光标在这些山上飞行，搜索特定的创意，或只是浏览一下你搜集的众多数据。这是一种更好地查看和组织大型文件夹或文件的方式。你不再需要双击文件夹查看其中的所有子文件夹，然后再退出来查看另一个文件夹了。在Topicscape中，你所有的文件夹都象小山一样在你面前一览无余。
但3D Topicscape也象思维导图一样工作，建立蜘蛛网一样的主题图形，子分支就是较小的山峰。每个孩子（子主题或子文件夹）可以有多个父母（换言之，它可以被连接到几个更大的文件夹中）。能够将一个文件保存在几个不同的山峰中意味著你可以更自由地组合创意（如何建造更好的圆顶屋）、项目（购买圆顶屋材料）或主题（疯狂的项目）。
这个软件并不是完美无缺的。我发现山峰间的联系有点混乱，尤其是当我建立松散的联系，或是将山峰安排给多个父母山峰时。尽管这款软件相当稳定且比较符合人的直觉，但仍需要用户稍微多花点时间和心思。也就是说，能够在电脑里到处飞翔绝对是种无拘无束的体验，而且，用它还很有可能制作出比《叛逆性骚扰》更好的电影。
Jeremy Wagstaff
