With PaperCamp happening tomorrow, alongside BookCamp, I have spent some time this week thinking about paper.
The thought that caught my interest was how graphs can be represented with paper – not on paper, but with paper.
To cut a rambling story short, I’ve written a tool that takes a set of pie-chart data and produces a series of outlines that can be cut out and assembled to create a 3D model of the chart.
Having a physical embodiment of the raw data means you can touch it, feel it, grope it; whatever helps you understand it.
I think I’ll leave it there for now; it’s late, I have an early train to catch and I’ve used the word grope.
Update: as I mention in the comments, you can get your own custom paper pie chart from here.
pingback from [PaperCamp] pirates & scalpels and 3D pie charts – mondo a-go-go • January 19, 2009
[...] that, another demonstration of nifty thinking, Nick O’Leary’s 3D pie charts and paper graphs. He wants to make a pop-up book of statistics, which could work really well in bringing those [...]
Chris • January 19, 2009
Hello. Is it possible to get the PDFs? I want to see if I can fire up the vinyl cutter…
nick • January 19, 2009
Hi Chris – here’s a hastily put together pdf that should do the job. One page are the ‘horizontal’ pieces, the other, the ‘vertical’. You can just about use the diagrams above to figure out the ordering – but this is something I need to improve in the code that generates this stuff.
Let me know how you get on.
pingback from La Feuille » Archive du blog » Les projets du PaperCamp • January 22, 2009
[...] sur les graphiques, en cherchant à les représenter avec du papier plutôt que sur le papier : PaperGraph. Il veut même créer le premier livre pop-up de la [...]
pingback from La Feuille » Archive du blog » Les projets du PaperCamp • January 22, 2009
[...] sur les graphiques, en cherchant à les représenter avec du papier plutôt que sur le papier : PaperGraph. Il veut même créer le premier livre pop-up de la [...]
pingback from Roo Reynolds - PaperCamp • January 24, 2009
[...] O’Leary shared his paper graphs, with a pop-up paper pie chart. I can’t wait for the big pop-up book of statistics and the [...]
maelorin • February 3, 2009
Hi there,
Any chance you might share the code? For those of us dead keen on cutting, but less good with the code cutting ^_^ (aka law-talking and technocratic phd geek)
I’ve grabbed a copy of the PDF to play with. Thanks
nick • February 3, 2009
@maelorin – I have put up a project page for this work here. I will be sharing the code at some point, but for now you can generate your own paper graph pdf from that page. I’ll be publicising it in the next few days.
pingback from Paper Pie Charts? | PTS Blog • February 3, 2009
[...] pie chart that isn’t printed on paper, but is actually fabricated out of paper. It came from Paper Graphs, on Nicholas O’Leary’s knolleary blog. This seems to be more a work of art than a [...]
pingback from xocas.com » Blog Archive » Concurso de gráficos con papel en Infosthetics • February 11, 2009
[...] lo bien que nos lo pasamos, esperamos ansiosos la decisión de Nicholas O’Leary y Andrew Vande [...]
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