August 1, 2006, 9:02 am
Podcasting, Literally
by Henry Woodbury
Filed under: Visual Explanation
The New York Times has a story today on the visualization of whale songs by engineer Mark Fischer:
Mr. Fischer creates visual art from sound using wavelets. Once relatively obscure, wavelets are being used in applications as diverse as JPEG image compression, high definition television and earthquake research, said Gilbert Strang, a math professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on wavelets.
They are popular now in part because they can capture intricate detail without losing the bigger picture, and when presented in circular form (using a cylindrical coordinate system), repeated patterns are even more evident.
While the images have the candylike quality of� iTune’s “Visualizer” they may have practical application in identifying particular whale species and even individual whales. The patterns may also help researchers identify meaning and grammer in whale communication.
On Fischer’s web site, aguasonic.com,� he links to still images and� movies, such as this visualization of the song of a Northeast Pacific Blue.
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