Data Visualization in Entertainment

I was checking out the PaperVision3D blog today, and stumbled across a really impressive data visualization technique used by the band Radiohead with the release of their new video for "House of Cards". You can check out the video here.

Here is a completely interactive version of the data visualization, complete with audio synchronization: http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/viewer.html

It was created using a modified version of PaperVision3D... Even more impressive, there were no cameras used to create this. Check out this quote from the google code site hosting the visualization:

No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D
images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.

You can read more about this technique and data visualization at: http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/

You can even download the data, and create your own visualizations from: http://code.google.com/p/radiohead/downloads/list

Related links:
Papervision3D blog post
Interactive Data Visualization
Google Radiohead page
Google Code Download