So turns out Ben Shneiderman is into pies! Actual pies that is, but in the form of charts. Rather than, you know, the other way around. Feast your eyes on delicious-looking chart pies!
I'm pulling a Gelman here by just quoting Ben's email:
I've started a new hobby-- baking peach pies. I did a few this summer with the usual crisscross pattern but a friend thought these were too much like a traditional rectangular lattice. So I've made him a parallel coords one (see photo) with peaches and strawberries. My next challenge is a treemap pie.
I thought you might like this as an item for Eager Eyes...I'm sure you'll find something clever to say about these pies. Maybe we can inspire a VIS PIE contest.
Who would take issue with a VIS PIE contest? What could go wrong with promoting pies at VIS?
Anyway, Ben is not the only one. Moritz Stefaner and others have turned data into food in their Data Cuisine. And Noeska Smit has a fun little blog called GameCakes (not really vis, and you have to scroll past the crocheted Androids, but her research is in visualization, so that counts).
Food and vision clearly go together. In one of my more ludicrous postings, I once wondered what other foods could inspire chart types.
I, for one, am looking forward to the treemap pie – delicious metaphor confusion and all.
Wow, thanks for the mention! I haven’t baked a game-themed cake in a while though. Maybe I should pick it up again, change direction to medical visualization themed cakes ^^. So we’ll have some baking at VIS this year?
“I once wondered what other foods could inspire chart types.” Need I say, spaghetti and network maps?