I was going through some old files today and found some 3D plots I’d made of acceleration data recorded from gestures as part of my PhD work. I used gnuplot to create a series of plots from lots of different angles so I could join them together into a movie that would show the cloud of data rotating in space. Unfortunately, the movies didn’t work very well on my computer when I tried to open them today. Quicktime complained about requiring additional components to watch them, but then gave me no clue as to _which _component I needed.
I was a little disappointed until I realized that I could take the series of original image files and replicate the effect fairly simply in JavaScript and even add some interactivity (I’ve only tested it in Firefox).
I don’t really know what the use of these plots is, but they’re somehow intriguing. If I can find the original image files for the other gestures I recorded, I’ll put some of them up too. It’s very interesting to see how the gestures have different patterns of acceleration.