Design Knowledge Base

Cinematic Data Visualization

How film draws data. Each type below is a live demo, named, coded, and classified (family, function, encoding channel, ontology, legibility tier, production method, and agency) so you can point to the exact thing you mean in a brief, a prompt, or an argument. Click a code to copy the reference, its axes and a description.

Locate & Track

where a thing is, and where it is going11

Radar sweepPPI scope · plan-position indicatorrotating beam paints contacts that decay

Wireframe terrain scansurface scan · sensor drapea mesh drapes over relief as the sensor passes

Topographic fieldisoline · contour mapnested contours breathe as the field updates

Orbital-mechanics plotconic arcs and a burn window closing

Trajectory arcpredictive path · lead indicatorprojected path with an impact bracket

Flow mapconnection map · great-circle arcdirected arcs carry particles between nodes

Choroplethterritory controlregions shift allegiance by fill

Transit schematicroute diagramoctilinear network, no true geography

Dot-density swarmpopulation as scattered unit marks

Pin mapmarker dropa located thing, and nothing else

Blip trackcontact list · motion trackerdiscrete returns with bearing and closing range

Hex-bin overlayhoneycomb density · tactical griddensity binned to a tessellating grid

Cartogramvalue-weighted map · mosaic distortionterritory resized by what it holds

Identify & Match

is this the one7

Bounding-box detectionboxes latch, label and release

Candidate rackface-match grida wall of possibles culled to one

Match-percentage lockconfidence bara number climbing to certainty

Optic-nerve scaniris capture · baseline testthe eye rendered as terrain, not as a lens

Sequence readoutDNA · genome ladderbase pairs streaming past a fixed cursor

Waveform matchspectrogram · voiceprinttwo traces sliding into phase

Dossier cardpersonnel recorda person compressed to a rectangle

Measure & Monitor

a value against a line that matters10

Angular gauge clusterdial bankneedles against a swept arc

Threshold barbullet grapha value crossing a line that has consequences

Vital-signs multi-tracestacked traces sweeping right

Sparkline railmicro-graph stackthe most-borrowed real dataviz device in FUI

Countdown timerthe only readout the audience always parses

Level meterresource tanka quantity that can run out

Error bartolerance bandthe admission of uncertainty

Control chartdrift monitorin-spec until it isn’t

Battle-damage digital twinthe model bruises where the object did

Progress crawldecryption barthe most abused type in the catalogue

Candlestick tapeOHLC bar · market tapeprice prints right to left, body and wick

Structure & Anatomy

how a thing is put together8

Exploded viewparts retreat along their assembly axes

Molecular latticestructure as nodes held at fixed distance

Treemapspace-filling partitionarea encodes size — a genuine encoding

Dendrogramhierarchy tree · org chartauthority drawn as depth

Node-link graphconspiracy boardwho touches whom

Rotating 3D orbitturntablenamed by Coleran as the field’s worst trope

Cutaway elevationorthographic sectionthe skin removed, the plan kept

Volumetric slice stacktomographic scana solid read one plane at a time

Sunburst hierarchymulti-level donut · radial partitiona system broken down ring by ring

Chord matrixcomms web · traffic analysiswho is talking to whom, and how much

Volumetric point cloud3D scatter · returns tanknear returns bright, far ones sink

Compare & Distribute

more, less, and how spread7

Sankey flowwaterfall · alluvialquantity conserved across a branch

Radar polygonspider · star plotperceptually weak, visually complex — the FUI default

Heat-map grida grid sorted by feel, not by value

Bar rackcolumn chartrare in FUI — and where it does appear, it is a set-build

Scatter cloudcluster plotpoints finding their groups

Histogramdistribution curveshape of the spread

Small-multiples walltile gridone chart repeated until it is a texture

Unit gridwaffle chart · strength boardone mark per unit, counted down

Attrition funneltriage stages · narrowing cohorta population lost stage by stage

Parallel coordinatesprofile compare · multivariate tracemany subjects, one axis per trait

Simulate & Predict

states that have not happened7

Deterministic-state scrubpast and future as one addressable strip

Probability fanbranch cone · forecast conecertainty decaying with distance

Branching timelinemultiverse monitora trunk, and the branches being pruned

Precognition scrubgestural scrubthe gesture is the visualization

Sensory-layer scrubbraindanceone memory, separable into channels

Higher-dimensional unfolda solid that will not stay a solid

Simulation-vs-actual overlaythe model, and the world disagreeing with it

Mission scheduleGantt · phased operationphases against a clock, with a now line

Record & Retrieve

the archive, and getting back into it7

Physical card archivemicrofiche · punch recordretrieval as manual labour

Terminal scrollbackcommand logtext that is actually executable

Spatial file browser3D file managerdirectory height encodes size — a real grammar

Photo-navigation“enhance”cinema’s most durable interaction paradigm

Ledger tablemanifest · data poolbureaucracy rendered legible

Semiotic icon standardpictogram systema published grammar, not a per-film palette

Wayfinding signifierhazard markinga world object doing UI work

Atmosphere

encodes nothing — and is most of the screen7

Fuidget fieldgreebles · nurniesNoessel’s term — detail that encodes nothing

Scan linerefresh sweepthe display admitting it is a display

Idle breathing loopkeeps a screen alive between plot beats

Degradation layerscreen burn · ghostingfidelity as biography

Unreadable glyph blockconstructed scriptmeaning intuited without translation

Reticle furniturebrackets that track nothing

Boot crawlPOST sequencethe machine introducing itself

Concept & Channel

where the carrier is the message7

Deliberation displayquorum · split decisionrendering a machine disagreeing with itself

Agent affect stateemoticon facesystem status carried by a face

Sonification cuelock tone · auditory displaythe weld that makes a graphic legible

Meta-perception filtersensory overlaythe frame becomes the character’s eye

Acoustic substratelevitated matterphysical particles as the display medium

Scale ladderorders of magnitudethe concept is the zoom, not the readout

Non-diegetic locatortitle card · slateinformation for the audience only

Chatter cloudword cloud · intercept frequencylanguage sized by how often it recurs