If you've watched television for any length of time, chances are you've seen the classic FAA blips-on-a-screen representations of air traffic over the United States. A student at UCLA has taken this to the next level by generating high-res 3d movies of air traffic over the country. They're all in QuickTime format, so you'll have to have the appropriate CODECs or players installed. The animations are an interesting diversion, if nothing else. There is a version where each kind of flight is colour-coded, a 3D dome projection (nice work on that, incidentally), and even one where an amorphous blob is …

Data visualisation is a process in which the bits of a given data field are displayed in a graphical format to help the analyst find patterns or anomalies in the data. For example, staring at system logs for a couple of hours is enough to put your mind on autopilot: You'll keep staring and hitting the page down key every once in a while, but your conscious mind doesn't really register the data that your eyes are sending to your brain. Unless there is something unmistakably wrong, even the pattern recognition functions of the brain will be bored to tears …