The previous research and work done at Cork Institute of Technology in 2012 already had data included the visualizations of live data. The data was the live feed of a radio telescope, providing a constant number (normally between about 1-10), representing the amount of hydrogen at the position it's pointed at. In the final piece, the amount hydrogen was represented by little hydrogen atoms projected on a wall, as well as a sonification of hydrogen:
There are many different ways to visualize radio telescope data. Most commonly used data sheets used by astronomers look fairly complicated and probably quite boring for the general public. Where optical telescopes can provide astonishing imagery that can simply be projected on a screen, data from the radio telescope has to be converted and shown in a way, that the user enjoys and in some way understands, what that data means. For the visualization and auralization of hydrogen, the Rydberg Formula and the corresponding Lyman Series where used. Inspiration for this came from science blog ‘New Scientist’. Visual sine waves where arranged according to the Lyman Series and are representing the frequency of hydrogen, which naturally has the frequency of 1.4 GHz. One sine wave in the series consists of hexagons being surrounded by a single dot, which represents the atomic model of hydrogen and its typical hexagonal structure. The amplitude represents the amount of hydrogen at the particular position. Additional visualizations for the projection are also based on the atomic model of hydrogen, which consists of one core and single electron flying around it. The more of those models are flying around, the more hydrogen exists at the particular position. The sound design for the incoming data is also based on the Lyman Series. The sound consists of in total ten sine waves that are arranged according to the Lyman Series. The volume of the sine waves represents the amount of hydrogen. A dynamic band pass filter, which is added onto the main signal, also influences the sound according to the data. This series of sine waves could theoretically even be expanded, possibly to an infinite amount, just as the Lyman Series itself.
(From the Research Paper of the StarSound Project)
In fact, the sonification of hydrogen played a major part in the final piece, providing an understanding of what the data represents, which is in that case, something you usually cannot see or hear. If and how sonification can play a supportive part in other data representation, will be further examined during the research phase.
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