Beautiful Artwork Created By Mapping Websites

A lecturer from Newcastle University has developed a method for mapping websites, which takes a screenshot of a website at a given time, then maps out all the navigation links that a user can see, as well as all the source links for images, videos and code. This information is then mapped out to create some stunning looking artwork that makes a website look more like something the USS Enterprise would want to scan.

Data Cartographer is the work of Martin Dade Robertson, and it’s taken him ten years to build. It gathers the data using a web crawler like those used by a search engine, tracks it all down and generates the lovely images you see here.

Each node in the image represents a component of the site, such as an image, or another page and it is all plotted out using something called a “force directed graph”.

“I’ve been interested in the ideas behind the data portraits for some years now, looking at the way the online world is developing and how you could show that dense information in a new way in my research. I started playing around with the data and found a way to capture the information and make it into art. What is really fascinating about this is that it really is a snapshot of a website at particular point in time and if I did the same process again just a day later, the data portrait would be different as the information available would have changed.” Said Mr Robertson.

It’s a great concept and we love the idea of using technology to create something unique and original such as these artworks.

Thank you Wired for providing us with this information.

Images courtesy of Wired.