Gabriel Weintraub

A 3D printed data visualization utilizing data collected from the NBA's SportVU player tracking system

Description

Data collection and data analysis are both enormous parts of the professional sports industry. Increasingly, leagues and individual teams implement advanced tracking systems, like the NBA's SportVU tracking cameras, that are able to measure essentially every movement during a game to a precise degree, producing staggering amounts data to dissect. Utilizing some of those technologies, this semester I modeled and 3D printed a physical interpretation of a chunk of that data. Specifically, I collected the on-court position for every shot that Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry took during this year's regular season. By interpolating success rates at each point on the court, I produced a shooting “heatmap,” which was further used to deform a 3D modeled basketball as though it were being selectively deflated in specific regions, essentially creating a topological map of a basketball court, with elevation corresponding to shooting frequency and success rates from a given position, and interpolated by the surrounding data. The final piece has been printed using color jet printing technology to produce a life-size basketball in full color and detail.

In addition to my prints, my presentation will include information on the data collection, as well as speculation into future applications for 3D renderings of sports data.

Classes

Sculpting Data into Everyday Objects, Sculpting Data into Everyday Objects