DataCloud 2.0 Objectives:
Information space

By Piet Vollaard

BACKGROUND

The media-objects in DataCloud 2.0 are represented as 'real' objects and are arranged in a 3-D 'space' defined by the user and through which the user can navigate.

The proximity of objects to one another has an 'associative meaning'. Objects that belong together are located closer together (forming small constellations); objects that don't belong together are further apart. This belonging, this constellation within a differentiated cloud of objects, is rendered according to a specific command given by users (on the basis of a search of specific characteristics according to a keyword or string of such characteristics).

This idea of an associative - as opposed to hierarchical or linear structures and navigation - structuring of and navigation through data-objects is the main feature of DataCloud. The constellation of the DataCloud is fluid. It changes according to each new search or reconfiguration command from users. Users can change the characteristics of individual objects and thus the position of an individual object within its constellation.

The addition and alteration of objects, groups and (more linear organised) strings of objects enriches the set of objects and their characteristics and thus the 'intelligence' of the DataCloud as a whole. A DataCloud can be used to represent a mental map or knowledge map of a specific theme.

ADVANTAGES OF DATACLOUD 2.0

1. Shift from 2-d to 3-d environment
2. Enhanced user interface
3. Faster, more generic technology framework

The first DataCloud:
Datawolk Hoeksche Waard (DWHW)

DWHW (2d GUI) was set up to collect information, to discuss and to browse both factual and more fuzzy data about the physical transformation of the Hoeksche Waard.

This island, close to Rotterdam, was the subject of an international urban and landscape design project in 1998/99.

The inserted data-objects were highly diverse: landscape photography, historical texts and maps, personal stories from inhabitants, interventions by artists, designs by architects, series of photographs, descriptions of the island's vernacular architecture, the island's political agenda and view on the subject, and even the sound of all the church bells in the villages around the island. In total, around 700 different objects were created and modified during a period of about six months.

This first version of DataCloud was awarded the Dutch National Millennium Prize for projects in the combined fields of science and the arts (November 2000). The prize money has been spent developing a version DataCloud 2.0.