Winner of the 2003 edition of NSF Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge, in the Illustration category, this ferris wheel-like arrangement, created by seniors at Boston University, was seen as an elegant solution for managing unwieldly amounts of information. The three-dimensional interface organizes computer contents by their relationships rather than their physical position on a hard drive. Each spiderweb thread marks the ties between folders holding contents related to the open file folder (center, in purple).The program displays relationships that would not be clear in a normal two-dimensional file tree, says Adam Miezianko, who created it with three fellow seniors at Boston University in Massachusetts. Miezianko says the system, built with OpenGL on a Linux platform, could be applied to any sort of hierarchical database, from corporate organizational charts to genetic or ecosystems data. The software could find, for example, all far-flung files containing data on mammals that live in tree canopies. The user can rotate, zoom into, pan across, and spin the three-dimensional file tree to see all possible links with varying criteria.
Boyce Rensberger, a member of the judge panel, said the screen snapshot was "visually striking". "It's a good example of a way of organizing somewhat abstract information into categories, things that are normally not visual ... showing degrees of relationship".
