7 Beautiful Data Visualizations (With Videos)

Data visualizations can be gorgeous, but images often don't do them justice, especially if we're talking live, real-time visualizations (some of which require a lot of processing power and can't even be run on a regular desktop computer). We've dug out 7 videos of awesome data visualizations you simply must see.


Skyrails is a social network visualization system, but it can be used to visualize any graph or dataset. It has a built in programming language for processing, but it allows for the creation of menus so even non-experts can use it. As far as the actual visualizations go, they redefine awesomeness. For more info on this amazing tool check out the official homepage.

Radiohead - House of Cards

After all the techy stunts they've pulled over the years, we're practically counting on Radiohead to be on the forefront of technology, and they didn't let us down with their last video, House of Cards. The video was created sans the use of cameras; it's pure data, and if you feel so inclined, you can create another version of the video by using the same tools they did.

Fidg't Visualizer

Fidg't Visualizer is a powerful desktop tool that enables you to visualize your Last.FM or Flickr network according to various criteria; for example, you can see what types of photos are more popular than others, or how popular a certain band is among your friends.

Animation of a Large Social Network

There's not much info about the data used here, but boy does it look gorgeous! The data comes from an unspecified German social network, and the visualization was created with a tool called Walrus. You can find more about the project here.

Project Palantir

You know what a palantir is, right? It's the crystal ball thingy from Lord of the Rings - Saruman and Sauron's favorite toy. Well, now it's also a real-time visual representation of the actions happening on Facebook, and boy it looks pretty! It uses geo data to show where on Earth things are happening; you can see stuff like users making new friends, or just overall actions and interactions on the site. What warms our geeky hearts the most is the fact that they even included our Sun which is visible as you zoom out and scroll around the globe.

Real-Time Transportation System Visualization

This is an example of a real-time, dynamic, traffic data visualization system. You can see animated vehicles actually moving through the 3D terrain; the visualization also includes real-time traffic incidents, weather data, as well as buildings and structures.

Genealogy Motion Graphics

This project shows a visualization of a genealogy data set using Rhizome Navigation. The graph in the video features more than 3300 persons and goes back in time to the author's earliest ancestors, Icelandic settlers from the early 10th century.

Know of any other cool videos of data visualizations out there? Please, let us know in the comments!