THE WIND AS ARTIST NOW

Wind is visible only in that we can see the things that it moves when it blows. And when we look at those things, as they flutter and stream, we can find incredible beauty. Today, we are presenting art created by some clever artists and technologists, along with the wind itself, in the form of Wind Maps.

EARTH -- CAMERON BECCARIO

Earth is a real-time global weather map devised and designed by software engineer Cameron Beccario, that visualizes both wind and water currents using data from the Global Forecast System.

The map is interactive. You can spin it like a 3D globe.

You can also adjust a number of parameters to see how weather patterns vary at different layers of the planet's atmosphere, from the surface on up to the stratosphere. It uses color to depict varying wind speeds at each level.

You can even select from eight different map projections on which to visualize the data. You can also drag and zoom in on them.

The map updates its swirling visualizations every three hours. And it’s so beautiful, you can easily end up spending hours just watching it.

For a small taste of what that might be like, check out the video below.

Beccario started on his mapping quest with a wind map of Tokyo, where he lives. He was inspired by the US Wind Map, in the segment below.

US WIND MAP - HINT.FM

Wind is an ancient source of energy and beauty.

Wind, with its continuous flowing movements, lends itself well to visual representation. Fernanda Viégas, and Martin Wattenberg, heads of Big Picture, Google’s Data Visualization Group, have created the US Wind Map, as an “artistic exploration.” It is on display now on the team’s collaboration site, hint.fm.

Delicate comet-like tails reveal the direction of the motions of the wind in a technique that goes back to 1686, when Edmund Halley used comet-like trails to show motion.

The color of the tails shows the wind’s intensity. As the weather changes, the trail patterns change color, shape, and direction.

Calm weather trails are mesmerizing to watch. Hurricanes are thrilling. Check out the wind maps of Hurricane Sandy (above and below). See Hurricane Katrina wind swirls at the end of this post.

The map updates with new surface wind data from the National Digital Forecast Database every hour, so the piece is constantly shifting in beautiful new ways. More incredible, the entirety of the map is rendered using only HTML and javascript.

Viégas, a designer, and Wattenberg, a mathematician, are particularly devoted to making visualizations that are more than just representative of massive data sets. They’re going for art!

These wind maps are beautiful. Wind map prints are available from Point.B Studio.

Read more about Windy Beauty all this week on BeautifulNow, including 10 Beautiful Places to Catch the Wind Now, 10 Most Beautiful Places to Fly a Kite, and The Beauty of Bluster & Breeze and The Wind Beneath Your Wings is Here. And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Wellness, Impact, Nature/Science, Food, Arts/Design, and Travel, Daily Fix posts.

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PHOTO CREDITS:

1. Image: Courtesy of Earth. “Typhoon Kalmaegi approaching Guangdong, China.”
2. Image: Courtesy of Earth. Wind velocity at 26,500 meters.
3. Image: Courtesy of Earth. Wind on 2 April, 2014.
4. Image: Courtesy of Earth. Wind velocity at 10,500 meters.
5. Image: Courtesy of Earth. Winds 17 miles above the Earth.
6. GIF: Courtesy of Earth. Wind movement centered at the North Pole.
7. Image: Courtesy of hint.fm. US Wind Map.
8. Image: Courtesy of hint.fm. US Wind Map hurricane Isaac over Louisiana.
9. Image: Courtesy of hint.fm. US Wind Map superstorm Sandy.
10. Image: Courtesy of hint.fm. US Wind Map superstorm Sandy.
11. Image: Courtesy of hint.fm. US Wind Map hurricane Isaac over Louisiana.