Tuesday, November 16, 2004
VDQI: Cube of Potential Doom
A very cool VDQI of attempted TCP connections on a network. The subject is a bit technical (not to mention techie), the write-up could be clearer, and you'll need to decompress the movie to watch it, but it's worth a look. The basic question is how to display, dynamically, attacks on the ports and addresses of a network.
I think this is a great VDQI for several reasons:
1. It is a sucessful implementation of a 3D scatterplot. Very rare. The key is that we're not so interested in pinning down the locations of particular points, but instead we are interest in noticing 3-D patterns, which is much easier. Even more important; this is a real time display, and adding a time dimension to 3D VDQIs makes them easier for our brains to decipher, because we can use the (illusion of) movement to start figuring out the depth of objects.
2. The use of color, about which I was skeptical at first, seems well done. The choice of axes helps motivate things too: stuff near the floor is the bad guys trying to break in.
3. The metaphor is perfect for the audience. Techies ~= Trekkies, and this is straight out of sci fi displays of baddies attacking in space. And the audience ate that up---and "got" it faster than most people would.
4. The creators classify common (and memorably named) patterns of attack (see the write up for the barber's pole or the lawnmower). Very cool, and this bit of info makes the whole package much more dicipherable.
The only complaint I have is the spinning, which (except when user controlled) does nothing for me.
I think this is a great VDQI for several reasons:
1. It is a sucessful implementation of a 3D scatterplot. Very rare. The key is that we're not so interested in pinning down the locations of particular points, but instead we are interest in noticing 3-D patterns, which is much easier. Even more important; this is a real time display, and adding a time dimension to 3D VDQIs makes them easier for our brains to decipher, because we can use the (illusion of) movement to start figuring out the depth of objects.
2. The use of color, about which I was skeptical at first, seems well done. The choice of axes helps motivate things too: stuff near the floor is the bad guys trying to break in.
3. The metaphor is perfect for the audience. Techies ~= Trekkies, and this is straight out of sci fi displays of baddies attacking in space. And the audience ate that up---and "got" it faster than most people would.
4. The creators classify common (and memorably named) patterns of attack (see the write up for the barber's pole or the lawnmower). Very cool, and this bit of info makes the whole package much more dicipherable.
The only complaint I have is the spinning, which (except when user controlled) does nothing for me.
