A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. So what is it ‘worth’ to visualise not just words but massive amounts of complex data, and to be immersed in that visualisation?

Attendees at the 2024 IoT Impact conference, to be held at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) on June 13, will have a rare chance to see for themselves, with a guided tour of the UTS Data Arena, a facility that enables researchers to immerse themselves in, observe and interact with their data on a massive scale.

Professor Glen Wrightwick, UTS Deputy Vice Chancellor Research, likened the experience to visualising a very large spreadsheet to gain insights into what its data represents.

“I can bring those millions of rows of data in a spreadsheet, into the Data Arena, and I can see that data in three-dimensional form. I can delve into it. I can fly through it. I can render it in different colours. I can explore it at different scales," he said on the UTS web site.

“We’re using the visual power of our brain to be able to interpret it. It’s a very powerful mechanism for looking for patterns, looking for anomalies, discovering new insights.”

The Data Arena combines the technologies of data visualisation with those of visual special effects from the movie industry.

Data is visualised and projected onto a large cylindrical screen, four metres high and ten metres in diameter using a high performance computer graphics system that drives six 3D-stereo video projectors, edge-blended to create a seamless three-dimensional panorama.

Viewers stand in the centre of screen and wear active-shutter glasses which present separate left/right views to achieve a stereo-visual effect. To increase users’ sense of immersion, data can also be transformed into sound.

And users can interact with the data. Each viewer has a mouse and motion tracking cameras mounted above the space enable each individual to take control of the presentation. For example, they could ‘walk’ though a visualisation of the internals of a building.

There will be two tours of the Data Arena during IoT Impact: 11:00am – 12:00pm and 1:00pm -2:00pm, each limited to 20 people. Express interest in attending the UTS Data Arena tour when booking your IoT Impact conference ticket here. 

The Data Arena tour will be just one of several offered at this, the fifth, annual IoT Impact conference and exhibition, organised by Australia’s peak IoT industry body, IoT Alliance Australia, and media partner IoT Hub.

Each event attracts more than 40 exhibitors and more than 500 delegates: policy makers, designers, solution providers, researchers, educators, technology buyers and IoT users and product and service developers and resellers looking to be ‘data smart’.

Delegates will be able to explore and debate and discover how Australia organisations are using IoT technologies to create a data smart Australia and a more sustainable future.

The IoT Impact conference will be held in Sydney on 13 June, 2024, at the Great Hall, UTS. Express interest in attending the Data Arena tour when booking your IoT Impact conference ticket here. See the IoT Impact Conference agenda here