Must-see chandelier forms a map of the world that highlights global data

The chandelier hanging in the Washington DC-based headquarters at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a bipartisan, nonprofit think tank focused on international policy and issues of global significance, is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. 

Using 425 hanging pendants, the contraption actually forms a map of the world for those standing beneath it. 

What’s more, the lights work together to form a low-res display map that illustrate various global data reports, including GDP growth rate, renewable water resources, and energy consumption for the countries of the world.

Each data set is paired with lighting animation code. The system is automated and links up to data hosted on the web. This allows the office to identify countries in the news and highlight them via the chandelier. 

The team that developed the data system wrote a series of python scripts that process data reports and color an SVG map of the world to match a normalized value for each set. An openFramworks app then loads these maps and outputs a DMX report to a series of dimmer boards that control the light fixtures 

For those curious, each pendant uses an MR-11 LED bulb. 

Each animation is unique from the other and is delivered in a way meant to resemble the underlying data; that is, the renewable water resources report is delivered in a manner that looks like rain drops, the energy consumption report pulsates as it is delivered, and the GDP data looks like it is growing.

To see the CSIS chandelier in action, check out the video below.

The global data chandelier was made possible via the efforts of the following contributors:

Concept, Design, and Programming: Sosolimited

Engineering: Hypersonic Engineering and Design

Electronics: Plebian Design

Fabrication and Installation: Hypersonic & Plebian

Form Development: Chris Parlato

Architects: Hickok Cole

Story via creativeapplications.net