Though statistical tools have been around since the 5th Century BC, it wasn’t until the invention of computers that statistical analysis as a science was really able to take off. Thanks to the ability to calculate and connect large amounts of data, we’re able, as a species, to see our behaviors and our relationships as patterns that are part of something larger than ourselves, as embedded in the patterns of our world as a whole. So, increasingly, we’ve seen more and more ways to represent statistical data in ways that change our perception and understanding of that data, with richly illustrated infographics proliferating across the web. It was natural, then, that, as 3D printing has gained traction in our society, people would start turning to additive manufacturing to display statistics, as well.
Jeff Hemsley, PhD Candidate at the University of Washington’s Information School and founder of the university’s Social Media Lab, has begun using 3D printing to create a tactile method for presenting social networks. Hemsley works largely with an open source, statistical programming language and software suite called R, which allows users to pretty much analyze and represent data in almost any way they want. Using some R add-ons, Hemsley was able to visualize a social network formed on Twitter, “[representing] the folks retweeting (list 1) and those they retweeted (list 2).” You can see the 3D model he was able to create below:
Hemsley noted that, because most 3D printers can’t handle data that complex and because, in statistical analysis, the most powerful parts of a network are usually the one’s at the centre of a study, he’d better get rid of some of the outlying data points that were less well-connected to the social network. In your group of friends, say, there’s you and your bf, your bff, your bffeae and all of their bffs, etc. and then there’s that guy Kenny who you only met at that party once in 2011. Well, Hemsley killed Kenny because he was less central to the social network. This made his ultimate 3D model much simpler for the sake of a study and for the sake of 3D printing. Finally, he was able to import it into Blender and turn it into a printable model. See the result below:
After uploading his model to Shapeways, he received his real-life social network in the mail, all for about $20. So, now that he has this plastic version of a network of Twitter twits, what’s the point? Hemsley had this to say:
First, why would anyone want to take network data, model it in 3D and then use a 3D printer to make it real? What is the advantage of representing data in such a way that you can hold it in your hand? I think there are many answers to this question, but as an illustration I want to draw your attention to an art installation called “Of all the people in all the world the rice show“. In this work they use grains of rice to represent people in different categories: a pile that shows the number of children who died from not being vaccinated last year, or a massive pile of all the current refugees next to a tiny pile representing the worlds billionaires. Being able to touch statistics can make them more engaging and bring instant understanding.
Imagine the use that such 3D-printed objects could have on children. Complicated models formulated by elaborate calculations could be understood intuitively by kids, who could touch and manipulate the stats in printed form. Perhaps this could usher in a whole new era of teaching statistics at an early age to prepare the younger generations for a more global understanding of life on this planet. And, not too long after, as Buckminster Fuller said in Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, “A new, physically uncompromised, metaphysical initiative of unbiased integrity could unify the world. It could and probably will be provided by the utterly impersonal problem solutions of the computers. Only to their superhuman range of calculative capabilities can and may all political, scientific and religious leaders face-savingly acquiesce.”
Source: SoMe Lab
