Rhizome Radar

by Peter Nowicki
(Charlestown, MA USA)

Interconnected components becoming art

Interconnected components becoming art

This is good technology but it is expensive to build and maintain, and if it goes down then the service goes down.


Better to scale down the technology and scale up the number of components (participants). This is similar in concept to what flickr did to online images--by having the masses contribute in small amounts, you end up with the same net result, but with more reliability and flexibility in the system as a whole.

Here's how it would work:

Pay participants around the area a small fee to install a microwave camera on their roof. This mini-camera will have built-in GPS and take pictures every X minutes. It will be hooked up to the participants' internet connection through their computer (which they should leave on) and feed the data back to the weather station, which will create a composite picture of the area's weather in real time by pasting together thousands of small images and stitching them together based on their geogrpahic location (from the GPS).

Barry's Response - Peter, what's Rhizome? The organization aims to integrate art and technology while providing a way to communicate new ideas. Also, they promote and expose artistic work and encourage participants to innovate. Art serves many fundamental purposes anyway, but it's probably a good idea to involve many artists and perspectives in the creation of new extensive works.

Rhizome supports the creation, presentation, and preservation of digital art and culture. New York-based company founded in 1996.



As for the Rhizome radar concept, it's an interesting idea, and it might work in some situations. Several technologies use the idea of distributing technology across multiple participants to improve reliability and flexibility, like distributed computing and peer-to-peer networks.

This approach has some potential challenges when it comes to weather monitoring. Participants could mess up the data if they don't maintain their equipment or if their location isn't ideal for capturing accurate weather data. Besides that, there may be issues with consistency of data and the overall quality of the weather station's composite picture.
The approach could be cost-effective, but it'll need careful planning and management to ensure quality and accuracy. Take into account the potential impact on participants, like privacy concerns and internet connection and electricity usage.

Is it possible to create a massive work of art by pooling weather observations? What's the problem?
Search this site for more information now.

Radar technology can be used in many ways to detect weather.


We're trying to address some of the limitations and challenges of traditional radar systems, like cost, maintenance, and reliability.

An innovative idea is to make weather monitoring more distributed and crowd-sourced. Rather than relying on one expensive radar system, the proposal involves a lot of people, each contributing a little bit. By letting users contribute small amounts of content, platforms like Flickr revolutionized online image sharing.

Here's how it could be implemented:

- Local participants would be offered a small fee to install a microwave camera on their rooftops.
- The mini-cameras would have GPS and be programmed to take pictures of the sky at regular intervals (X minutes).
- Cameras would be connected to participants' internet connections via their computers, which would have to stay on. A central weather station would then receive the collected images.
- Data Compilation: The weather station would get images from thousands of these cameras. The weather station composites and stitches together the GPS data from each image to create a real-time panoramic picture of the weather.

Through aggregating data from multiple distributed sources, a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of the local weather can be obtained. Traditional radar systems face some challenges, but this approach would offer more flexibility and reliability.

The idea is to leverage collective participation to make weather monitoring more cost-effective, resilient, and adaptable.

Something to think about.

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by: Capitan

Even though I never have heard about Rhizome radars, the concept did strike my mind and I really do think that it would be a good procedure to track the weather in a particular location. For this, I think the meteorological department can help people in understanding the principle.

From Barry - If developed, Rhizome radars would use antennas to detect changes in the Earth's atmosphere, like wind speed, temperature, and humidity. Meteorologists would predict weather patterns better by observing these changes and people might use such a thing to prepare for dangerous storms by doing this in areas prone to extreme weather.

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Cool
by: PKJ

That image on main page was quite attractive an made me to read the rest of the page. Concept of Rhizome sounds interesting but impractical in some way as well. I dnt think ppl will install a small camera on thier roof.
Though still i would like to know more on this, undoubtedly interesting/fascinating.

From Barry - Rhizome may connect the physical world to the digital world with cameras and sensors. With it, we could maybe collect data more efficiently and create unique experiences and get meaningful insights. Ideally, it can be used in a lot of industries and opens up a lot of possibilities.

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Cool
by: Anonymous

Never heard of Rhizome Radar before. Site is very informative for those interested in weather.

From Barry - Thank you. This website provides info about weather and environmental principles. Users can learn to compare and analyze the data with interactive maps and graphs. Meteorologists, researchers, and weather enthusiasts love the reference material provided here.

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my thoughts
by: Anonymous

you have to show that rhizome radar is worth the money that is needed to start up the system. it does sound very interesting, but i really would need to see a good demonstration of it before i commit any of my money to it.

From Barry - The system needs to be reliable, efficient, and cost-effective. Also, I'd like to see if it can be customized. Before I invest any resources, I need to be sure it's worth it.

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Rhizome Radar
by: Anonymous

I did not know about Rhizome Radar. I guess you learn something knew everyday. Very interesting.

From Barry - I might be worth look into it more. Who knows what else we'll learn!

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Thank you to my research and writing assistants, ChatGPT and WordTune, as well as Wombo and others for the images.

GPT-4, OpenAI's large-scale language generation model (and others provided by Google and Meta), helped generate this text.  As soon as draft language is generated, the author reviews, edits, and revises it to their own liking and is responsible for the content.