ChronoZoom

Reopened Issue: Navigator: Clicking on a colored bar does not go to that regime (Reported by David S) [994]

zyskowski — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 07:50:24 GMT

In the navigator, click on the green colored bar for Life
Expected
The canvas should go to the Life timeline
Actual
Nothing happens, the user can only click on the link "Life" on the left
Note
Clicking on the colored bars is the behavior of ChronoZoom version 1.
I have observed some people trying to click the colored bars expecting it to go the timeline.
Some people also said they expect ChronoZoom to go roughly to a point if they click in say first 15% of Life timeline. This is surely an advanced feauture.

New Post: Please join us on Github!

saekow — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 07:54:29 GMT

We have moved to Github:
https://github.com/alterm4nn/ChronoZoom

We also have a new community website and forums:
http://join.chronozoomproject.org/forum/forums/

New Post: Anyone else find Chronozoom 1.0 easier to digest?

saekow — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 07:53:20 GMT

Hi,

Thank you for taking the time to leave feedback! My name is Roland, part of the ChronoZoom 1.0 development team.

ChronoZoom is certainty a big project, and we have a long way to go =)
Regarding the image background, I agree there is work to do in that area. One idea we had last year was to have a different background image for each of the regimes. Here is an example from a mockup done last year for when inside the Humanity section:

We did not get a chance to implement the feature, if you can help please join the effort on github!
https://github.com/alterm4nn/ChronoZoom

We also agree with you that the blackness/darkness of ChronoZoom needs to go. The darkness problem is related to timelines having transparency. As you zoom in, the timelines stack up, causing the transparency to turn to black. This also explains why we cannot see the cosmos image in humanity. This year, a UI expert at Microsoft Research came up with this mockup:

More UI ideas are here in this YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wtkfN1roIFs

Regarding the lack of detail in the HTML5 version, we definitely want to get back to supporting all the data types we had in the first version (based on Silverlight). The reason we cannot display lots of data in the new version is due to how these two versions were built. The first version was very simple on the technology side. It was a series of giant Adobe Illustrator documents that were rasterized and stitched together. This meant anything we could draw in Adobe Illustrator, we could include in ChronoZoom.

In the HTML5 version, we have to make small visualization code for every object we want to include. So if we want to support arrows, we need to write a bit of code to do that. In Adobe Illustrator we could just draw an arrow however we wanted, with a shadow, stroke, and gradient even if wanted. The HTML5 version is much more efficient since only what is programmed as a HTML5 element is displayed rather than streaming an entire giant rasterized image.

There is a new chart feature upcoming next month that puts us on a path back to supporting more data. For next month, curve/XY line plots will be supported, such as displaying temperature over time.

For tree of life, it is a big project in itself which many other projects online are also undertaking.

I really appreciate you taking the time to write about ChronoZoom.
Since we are no longer on Codeplex, please head over to github to see the daily issues and new features:
https://github.com/alterm4nn/ChronoZoom

We also have a community website, including a forum where I would love to have you post more ideas and suggestions:
http://join.chronozoomproject.org/forum/forums/

New Post: Anyone else find Chronozoom 1.0 easier to digest?

Nicklucci — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 01:00:29 GMT

First, let me be clear: I love ChronoZoom. As a platform for cataloging and visualizing lots of data, it's brilliant.

However, I'm also of the opinion that ChronoZoom's new skin, or more accurately its lack of skin, detracts from the experience somewhat. Part of the problem is that the fixed background doesn't give users the same sense of scale while navigating from one event to another. But wholly separate is the fact that these events aren't easy to resolve against the black background. Hovering over each section adds some helpful color, but the overall aesthetic is (forgive me) rather dark and uninviting.

There's something to be said for a clean design, certainly, but one of the things that made the first version so engaging was the visible depth and abundance of information it contained. I miss hunting for the faint outline of an additional layer of detail to explore, and the various tree and line graphs that tied them all together.

Speaking of which, what happened to the history of metallicity, quasar formation, tree of evolution, et al? I hope these wont be relegated to galleries. Don't get me wrong, I think the galleries are a worthy addition -- I just hope they don't replace all the great stuff that fleshed out the timeline in version 1.

Anyway, I'm clearly being picky, but it's only because I care. This is a noble project, and I'm deeply grateful its authors for sharing it with everyone. Thanks again.

-NSG

Closed Issue: Navigator: Clicking on a colored bar does not go to that regime (Reported by David S) [994]

zyskowski — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:08:26 GMT

Created Issue: Iberia Info [1551]

JoaoNunes — Mon, 06 May 2013 15:40:09 GMT

Hi,

I´ll be more than happy to help out filling contents, on Global & Modern Portugal.
It´s a piety to be all left blank :(

http://www.chronozoomproject.org/#/t55/t174/t66/t46/t361/t364/t377/t161/t585/t591/t606@x=0&y=0&w=1.0346020761245673&h=3.386015204707902

http://www.chronozoomproject.org/#/t55/t174/t66/t46/t361/t364/t377/t161/t585/t593/t621@x=1.5280488941077425e-16&y=0&w=1.0346020761245671&h=2.1205347746655545

Best Regards
João Nunes

Created Issue: Bad link at the end of the survey [1550]

Vambok — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:56:10 GMT

There is a dot at the end of the link "http://www.chronozoomproject.org/Privacy.htm." that lead to a 404 error.

Updated Wiki: Home

Pax_Equus — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:12:00 GMT

See ChronoZoom on Github for source code and bugs, and ChronoZoom on Trello for feature planning.

Welcome to ChronoZoom
ChronoZoom is an open source community project dedicated to visualizing Big History that has been funded and supported by Microsoft Research Connections in collaboration with University California at Berkeley, University of Washington and Moscow State University.

Please be advised that this project is no longer active on CodePlex.
ChronoZoom has been moved to Github: https://github.com/alterm4nn/ChronoZoom

Created Issue: All ChronoZoom Issues on Github [1523]

Pax_Equus — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:07:28 GMT

Please be advised that this project is no longer active on CodePlex.
ChronoZoom has been moved to Github: https://github.com/alterm4nn/ChronoZoom

This is where you can find the latest source code and all relevant issues.

Updated Wiki: How to be a Developer on ChronoZoom

Pax_Equus — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:03:32 GMT

ChronoZoom is an open source project. Our team welcomes you support to make ChronoZoom a better, more exciting product.

Please be advised that this project is no longer active on CodePlex.
ChronoZoom has been moved to Github: https://github.com/alterm4nn/ChronoZoom

You can go to Github and contribute, we look forward to seeing you!

Updated Wiki: Home

Pax_Equus — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:01 GMT

See ChronoZoom on Github for source code and bugs, and ChronoZoom on Trello for feature planning.

Please be advised that this project is no longer active on CodePlex.
ChronoZoom has been moved to Github: https://github.com/alterm4nn/ChronoZoom

Updated Wiki: Documentation

Pax_Equus — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 23:50:35 GMT

Please be advised that this project is no longer active on CodePlex.
ChronoZoom has been moved to Github: https://github.com/alterm4nn/ChronoZoom

Updated Wiki: Home

altermann — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:09:50 GMT

See ChronoZoom on Github for new development and ChronoZoom on Trello for our plans for the future.

Project Overview
ChronoZoom is an intuitive on-line tool used to visualize all of time, from the Big Bang to today, using the concept of zooming along the timeline to express distance to highlight the scope of time.

When you see ChronoZoom zoom from the Industrial Revolution all the way back to the Big Bang, you can visualize time in a new way. You can browse through history on ChronoZoom to find data in the form of articles, images, video, sound, and other multimedia. ChronoZoom links a wealth of information from five major regimes that unifies all historical knowledge collectively known as Big History.

The regimes of Big History are:

Cosmos
Earth
Life
Human Pre-History
Human History.

By drawing upon the latest discoveries from many different disciplines, you can visualize the temporal relationships between events, trends, and themes. Some of the disciplines that contribute information to ChronoZoom include biology, astronomy, geology, climatology, prehistory, archeology, anthropology, economics, cosmology, natural history, and population and environmental studies.

ChronoZoom is a collaborative effort of the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at UC Berkeley, Microsoft Research, and originally Microsoft Live Labs.

Detailed Project Description
The last 20 years has seen the emergence of a new discipline invented by the Australian historian, David Christian, called Big History. The aim of Big History is to unify all knowledge of the past into a single field of study. Big History invites humanistic scholars and historical scientists from fields like geology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, astronomy, and cosmology to work together in developing the broadest possible view of the past.

Big History is proving to be an excellent framework for designing undergraduate synthesis courses that attract outstanding students. A serious problem in teaching such courses is conveying the vast stretches of time from the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago to the present, and clarifying the wildly different time scales of cosmic history, Earth and life history, human prehistory, and human history.

Our first conception of ChronoZoom was that it should dramatically convey the scales of history, and the first version does in fact do that. To display the scales of history from a single day to the age of the Universe requires the ability to zoom smoothly by a factor of ~1013, and doing this with raster graphics was a remarkable achievement of the team at Live Labs. The immense zoom range also allows us to embed virtually limitless amounts of text and graphical information

ChronoZoom, by letting us move effortlessly through this enormous wilderness of time, getting used to the differences in scale, should help to break down the time-scale barriers to communication between scholars.

The Future of ChronoZoom

We envision a world where scientists, researchers, students, and teachers collaborate through ChronoZoom to share information via data, tours, and insight.

Imagine a world where the leading academics publish their findings to the world in a manner that can easily be accessed and compared to other data.

Imagine a tool that allows teachers to generate tours specific to their classroom needs.

This can happen with your support. As ChronoZoom through the beta release, we need your feedback and support to continue to mold this project to suit your needs.

Help ChronoZoom evolve by take this survey so we can provide the best possible future features:
Click here to take our survey.

Roland Saekow, David Shimabukuro and Walter Alvarez
University of California Berkeley

Created Issue: Ooops. ChronoZoombeta not working on IE10 [1465]

lucianogallon — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 01:34:31 GMT

Hi
I'm a ChronoZoom fan and I'm using it in my classroom work. But just find tha it is not working on IE10...

Help!!!

Updated Wiki: Home

JayBeavers — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 17:05:32 GMT

See ChronoZoom on Github for new development and ChronoZoom on Trello for our plans for the future.

The regimes of Big History are:

Cosmos
Earth
Life
Human Pre-History
Human History.

ChronoZoom is a collaborative effort of the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at UC Berkeley, Microsoft Research, and originally Microsoft Live Labs.

The Future of ChronoZoom

We envision a world where scientists, researchers, students, and teachers collaborate through ChronoZoom to share information via data, tours, and insight.

Imagine a world where the leading academics publish their findings to the world in a manner that can easily be accessed and compared to other data.

Imagine a tool that allows teachers to generate tours specific to their classroom needs.

This can happen with your support. As ChronoZoom through the beta release, we need your feedback and support to continue to mold this project to suit your needs.

Help ChronoZoom evolve by take this survey so we can provide the best possible future features:
Click here to take our survey.

Roland Saekow, David Shimabukuro and Walter Alvarez
University of California Berkeley

Updated Wiki: Home

JayBeavers — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 17:04:13 GMT

FOR ALL DOCUMENTATION ON HOW TO USE CHRONOZOOM, PLEASE VISIT DOCUMENTATION.

The regimes of Big History are:

Cosmos
Earth
Life
Human Pre-History
Human History.

ChronoZoom is a collaborative effort of the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at UC Berkeley, Microsoft Research, and originally Microsoft Live Labs.

The Future of ChronoZoom

We envision a world where scientists, researchers, students, and teachers collaborate through ChronoZoom to share information via data, tours, and insight.

Imagine a world where the leading academics publish their findings to the world in a manner that can easily be accessed and compared to other data.

Imagine a tool that allows teachers to generate tours specific to their classroom needs.

This can happen with your support. As ChronoZoom through the beta release, we need your feedback and support to continue to mold this project to suit your needs.

Help ChronoZoom evolve by take this survey so we can provide the best possible future features:
Click here to take our survey.

Roland Saekow, David Shimabukuro and Walter Alvarez
University of California Berkeley

New Post: ChronoZoom Dev Talk

jaybeavers — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 16:56:39 GMT

We've moved development for ChronoZoom over to Github. We've made many changes in the code and it is now much easier to get running locally or on Azure. Take a look at our progress at https://github.com/alterm4nn/ChronoZoom and our plans for the future at https://trello.com/chronozoom.

Created Issue: BAD spelling [1398]

vtorcelli — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 02:02:59 GMT

Hard to believe, but dinosaurs is spelled wrong ("dinosours") on the Home Page !

Created Issue: Major Releases of Microsoft Windows is missing key items [1364]

MikeGalos — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 19:49:33 GMT

Windows 1,04, 2.03, 2.10, 3.0, Windows NT 3.1, Windows 2000 and Windows 7 are all missing. And they should ideally be represented with the 3 tracks (MS-DOS based, 9x and NT family) on separate sub-timelines with Windows XP showing as the merger of the consumer (MS-DOS and 9x) and corporate (NT family) into one timeline. Remember, the point of a timeline is to tell a story.

Created Issue: Date on Windows 95 icon is incorrect [1363]

MikeGalos — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 19:45:21 GMT

When zooming in it shows Windows 95 in January 1995, it was actually released on August 24th