iTunes Library Visualization
2008 October 06
Here’s a video demo of my iTunes Library Visualization project. I recommend watching it in HD on Vimeo—click the outward-pointing arrows to make it full-screen and then click “HD” to get the best quality image. (You can also play it above, at low-quality.)
Each track is represented by a disc. Longer tracks are larger discs. The tracks can be organized in space by length and frequency of playback (i.e. most listened-to tracks fly toward the front, least listened-to recede). Grouping by genre adds color and clusters all tracks of the same genre around one point. Once the tracks are colorized, they can be reordered while maintaining the color (so, for example, you could see if you listen to jazz more often than hip hop).
Future enhancements will add text to label groups and track names, and better physics to handle collisions and spatial overlapping.
Built using Processing and the ProXML library.
It reminds me your YOU ARE HERE project. You really like circles.
Comment by Agata — 2008 October 06 @ 7:52 pm
I was really surprised when you went from gray to color. I do wish there were some way to find out what the colors mean once they change. the wow effect is really strong but then the “what does it mean” question distracted me.
Comment by Elaine — 2008 October 09 @ 12:25 pm
Kudos on getting this to work! I know how much effort goes into the programming side of this stuff.
The mechanics of the interface are a lot more interesting to me than the data. I don’t know how much time I would spend evaluating my song lists but I would totally have fun making things line up and then separate, and navigating through space. I think the wow effect is definitely a good thing.
What about using data that has more of a spacial quality? For instance the locations of the bands for each song (not the best example). This could help could help justify the use of three dimensional space.
Comment by jason — 2008 October 11 @ 6:49 am