First 24 Hours of Spring

  • 36 x 48 inches
  • Bic Cristal
  • XY Mechanical Plotter
  • March 21, 2011

First 24 Hours of Spring (03-21-2011) is a XY mechanical pen plotter drawing. The drawing was created using a spirographic visualization program developed with Processing.js. The National Weather Service provided a dataset with four variables that included temperature, dew point, wind speed, and visibility. These variables were used to show hourly changes for March 21, 2011 through a sequence of spirographic renderings.

The work was first shown at the 2011 VisWeek Art Show, a curated exhibition of work from renowned artists and artist-scientist teams, organized by Daniel F. Keefe and Bruce Campbell. The exhibition was accompanied by a featured display of Maxwell Roberts’ creative information design and mapmaking spanning over 10 years.

See more: VisWeek 2011 Art Show, Publication design, VisWeek Conference, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), ZIP on thumb drive, Providence, RI, October 23, 2011 – October 28, 2011