The Mood of the Sunlight: Visualization of the Sunlight Data for Public Art
Yifan Wang, Nan Li, Suxuan Jiang, Jinlong Xu, Qi Wang, Shaomin Shen, Ning Ding
TL;DR
This work investigates translating long-term sunlight measurements into public-art experiences by mapping HSV color components to a rotating planet-gear visualization and pairing it with an auralization channel. The method uses an inverted-cone representation of HSV, where value $V$ scales gear size and period, saturation $S$ expands pattern coverage, and hue differences are largely ignored, with a derived formula $N_s = \lceil N_l \cdot \frac{r_s}{r_l} \rceil$ and $r_s = r_l \cdot V$. A dual-artwork installation—visual and auditory—demonstrates data-driven storytelling about the sun’s mood, exhibited in Shenzhen using long-duration data collected by an industrial camera. The contribution lies in a concrete, aesthetically compelling integration of data visualization and auralization to make scientific data accessible to the public, offering a scalable blueprint for science-art collaborations and future real-time tools.
Abstract
The application of data visualization in public art attracts increasing attention. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a visualization method for sunlight data collected over a long period of time with an industrial camera. The proposed method makes use of the saturation and value information of collected sunlight image data in Hue Saturation Value color model to show the variation of the mood of the sunlight. Specifically, we create visual patterns with a rotating planet gear, which has an intuitively consistent geometric meaning with HSV color model and the planetary motion. Due to the variation of the sunlight data over time, the generated visual pattern presents a periodic variation that corresponds to the changing mood of the sunlight. Furthermore, we also use the sunlight data to generate music as another form of data representation. Two public artworks have been created with the above visualization and auralization methods and displayed on an exhibition held at China Resources Tower, Shenzhen, China. This work is a typical practice of creating public installations with data visualization technology, giving a glimpse into the many ways science and art intersect.