Flight Information Visualization

My infoviz project will visualize the wealth of information pertaining
to flight schedules.

The first two pictures are a hand sketch, and then a more polished
digital sketch, of my first concept. Rather than simply listing
arriving flights, I show all of the flights from a given airport in
their own row. Each is positioned by its arrival time, so as time goes
by, flights move leftward, until they "arrive" at the current time.
Recently arrived flights are shown to the side. Delayed flights would
be shown with a wider bar, extending from the scheduled to the actual
time. This design could also be extended to show both arriving and
departing flights, perhaps by changing the shape of the bar to a left-
or right-pointing arrow.

The third image is a sketch of an alternative design, which places
arrows on a map to represent flights to and from a city. This view
presents more general information, taking advantage of the immediate
recognizability of a US map, but sacrifices some detail. The number of
flights is represented by the size of the arrow, the status by color,
and whether the flight is an arrival or departure.

-- Kevin Gessner