Interpreting Data

Reading graphs is a skill. We might be taught how to read line, bar, and pie charts in school because they have been around longer than others and are used the most. But there is a wide array of graph types outside of these standard types that we can use to visualize data. In the right context—with the right content—some of these graphs are inherently better than standard graphs while other times they enable us see patterns and relationships that might not be as apparent in standard forms.

The paths of air traffic over North America visualised in colour and form. The video is an animation made using Data from flight paths for planes over the USA.

In a robot lab at TEDGlobal, Raffaello D'Andrea demos his flying quadcopters: robots that think like athletes, solving physical problems with algorithms that help them learn. In a series of nifty demos, D'Andrea show drones that play catch, balance and make decisions together -- and watch out for an I-want-this-now demo of Kinect-controlled quads.

Representing data in a visual format can help us identify patterns, trends or outliers. The Wind map of America is data collected that reflects the speed and direction of wind on a specific day.

Click the map to explore how data can be is represented in a visual manner.