Stage 3 Blog

Imported XML

Chris — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 15:12:32 +0000

Just a quick update, I have successfully imported XML from twitter into QC, hopefully in the next few days I will link the information (most likely the tweet length) to some test visuals. More to follow!

Finished!

Chris — Sat, 15 May 2010 15:48:31 +0000

OK! I’m pretty sure my 4D project is completed.. here is a video and a few screenshots of how it looks..

VIDEO

Overall i am pretty pleased with what I have created and the association with the module is met (in my eyes at least). Here are a few features of the final product..

Full 3D angle customisation using mouse input.
Dynamic entities manipulated by tweet lengths of the public XML timeline.
Current UK Trending topics represented and manipulated by the trending topics themselves.
Full ‘twitter globe’ view.

Source File

Adding words..

Chris — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:28:17 +0000

In relation to my previous post, I have decided to add some words that are integrated into my visualisation composition. The words are current UK trending topics (which are pretty random) – changing size depending on the tweet length. The main words are changing size themselves.. others are changing the entities next to them (again, depending on the tweet length). I have also added a few aesthetic entities throughout the visualisation which are linked to the public timeline.

Updated entity..

Chris — Sat, 01 May 2010 15:26:58 +0000

Ok, the entity is now 3D which is controlled by the length of the tweet at the current node. At the moment it is mostly attractive over anything else (which is a bit of a concern) however I plan to add a trending topic feature in my ‘twitter globe’ to make the twitter link more obvious.. more to follow!

Limit Rates..

Chris — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:20:53 +0000

MAJOR SETBACK! Twitter has decided to limit REST API requests to 150 an hour which has had a huge impact on my project. Initially, the QC composition requested the XML page as soon as the last XML page was loaded.. due to internet connection speeds this was roughly 1-2 per second. As a result I have implemented an LFO patch which delays the request of a new XML page load to once every 20 seconds.

Ideally I would of preferred to have the data as live as possible to keep the flow going. However it should be ok as it is.. more to follow!

Progression..

Chris — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:20:08 +0000

After creating some initial data visualisation in QC, i have started to make the visualisation a tad more complex than what I have previously done. I am using the particle system within QC which generates an aesthetically appealing entity (supplying the image to generate). The Z property can also be specified which will be useful in the latter stages of my twitter visualisation to make the entity and visualisation have more depth..

Initial Look..

Chris — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:17:27 +0000

Ok, so I have been playing around with QC to start on my actual project and create some really basic data visualisation using the tweet lengths from the public twitter timeline (linked a few posts below). Obviously it is pretty basic but it is a start, which i’m pretty pleased about!!

What data is available?

Chris — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:31:27 +0000

As a result of exploring the hidden depth’s of the Twitter API, I have found the following links that could be useful to me in my QC. They contain various search queries which gives me a fantasic and varied data set which I can use and adapt to..

XML
Public Timeline
http://twitter.com/statuses/public_timeline.xml (or rss/atom)

RSS
Tweets From Area (using latitude/longitude) -Below shows tweets 10KM radius from Plymouth Town Centre
http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?geocode=40.757929%2C-73.985506%2C25km

Search tweets with keyword (in this case, Plymouth)..
http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=twitter

Combining queries.. (searching 2 words)
http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=devon+OR+cornwall&rpp=100

From a user (chr1s87) with a maximum amount per page of 100
http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=from%3Achr1s87&rpp=100

Imported XML and RSS from Twitter!

Chris — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:47:12 +0000

After researching into Quartz Composer and the functions it can perform, it did not appear too difficult to import RSS feeds or even XML data. After familiarizing myself with the program interface of QC (Quartz Composer), it wasn’t too long before I was creating basic compositions that perform simple functions such as rotating 3D cube, generate random shapes etc.

There are a few basic XML example templates within QC that i researched and tried to understood how it works, and after some tinkering around I finally managed to import XML data from twitter using the following link.. http://twitter.com/statuses/public_timeline.xml.

It’s quite hard to understand how it selects which nodes to display and i’m not quite sure how to specify exactly what data to show. The link I just supplied is the public timeline of tweets around the world, and shows 20 status updates at any one moment. (because there are 1000′s of tweets a second, the page is constantly updated..). Using QC I can display the first status update (the TEXT node) and the source of the update (the SOURCE node) and that’s it at the moment.

To import RSS feed’s is fairly simple. simply specify the RSS feed and it imports the latest entry and scroll’s through the page at any given rate.

XML or RSS?

Chris — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:26:39 +0000

After discovering Twitter’s API wiki – http://apiwiki.twitter.com/ – it’s became apparent how much information and how many types of information is available for me to use. The main types of data seem to be XML or RSS, but json is also an option. It’s also possible to perform many search queries via the URL itself, i’ll post some examples when i have a few to show. XML and RSS both have there up’s and downs, I will perform some research into the format’s available and see what I can do with them.