More IMCspace 3D/2D Visual Search Maps

3D You Tube User Search Map
Yet another IMCspace 3D search map. This map (requires a VRML viewer) shows a cluster of You Tube user's videos in comparison to their friends video clusters. The longer the video cube the more views it has gotten. This is a very easy way to search and compare large numbers of videos and users in a single visual map.




















2D You Tube Keyword Search Map
This is another IMCspace video search maps. This one is 2D but has the added benefit of zoom and floating info when the mouse rolls over a video. It's a basic idea that is being used more and more on the Web. But compared to traditional YouTube search results in list format, this "dynamic grid" search map approach is clearly a more efficient and fluid method of exploring a large pools of video search results.

The following passage from the book, Mapping Cyberspace, by Martin Dodge & Rob Kitchin, makes the important distinction between several key modes of information browsing where search maps can be useful.
"Browsing strategies: scanning (covering a large area without depth), browsing (following a path until a goal is achieved), searching (explicit goal search), exploring (finding the extent of information), and wandering (unstructured search) (Canter et al. 1985, cited in Kim and Kirtle 1995)."

Much of Studio IMC's research on immersive spaces (IMCtv, CINE) and visual search maps (IMCspace) is rooted in our belief that there is a definite need for new visual strategies in mapping information on the Web (and in physical spaces). These new strategies will reach beyond Google's text/list-based search strategy. Modes of experiencing information such as scanning and wandering are made much easier with birds-eye-view visual/image-based maps of large amounts of information. New relationships can be formed and shown in these visual search maps. 2D and 3D graphics as well as dynamic interactive animations, virtual physics, and immersive environments that mix virtual/real can inspire higher levels of understanding for every-growing datasets. These new search methods can provide us with a spatial/mental maps and a more active way of experiencing info space than Google's list search results.