aj470 / interactive_instagram

Interactive_Instagram

An WIP interactive 3D visualization of Instagram networks

Problem Statement:

In the most social media plateforms the news feed consisting of posts is linear and often is a timeline form except when algorithms prioritizing certain posts/content based on your past interaction. Here we have tried to build an environement where you can visualize your full network at once and navigate through it in your on ways. We also tried to apply simple heuristics to organize the network. One of the reasons we chose instagram is because it only has the content of the people/pages that you are following and the nature of conent is either photos or videos.

Project Structure:

This project is composed of two directories - Instagram_Network_Visualization, and Interactive_Instagram_VR. The former contains the neccessary scripts to generate the neccessary XML file, which is a network consisting of users that you are following on Instagram (and possibly more), and the latter actually generates said network from the XML, as seen below

Conceptual Demo.

Featuring:

• Multidimensional network visualizations of users within your immediate network.
• Username toggling on hover.
• See the Linked when hover on the node and Lock the links after 50 frames.
• click to move to the node.
• wide angle view.

NOTE: We will be releasing the script needed to generate the network.json file later.
XML File Generation: - Run the Jupyter Notebook to load the network.json file to generate the XML file.
How to Run:

• Click Play to initialize the environment
• Select 'Load File'
• Load the XML file containing the graph (i.e throughshutter.xml)

Controls:

• Movement: WASD keys
• Rotation: Up/Down/Left/Right Arrow keys

Licensing:

This project uses the initial code of Bamfax's repository, hosted at https://github.com/Bamfax/ForceDirectedNodeGraph3DUnity

As such, the following also apply to our project:

• Please be aware that the different parts of the code are using different licenses.
• If not mentioned otherwise, the code is released is GPLv3.
• Included is a slighty modified version of BulletUnity Plugin (Examples removed, BCamera included), refer to mentioned BulletUnity Github repository for its license.
• Layout.xml and CameraControlZeroG.cs from Jason Graves are GPLv3, as mentioned in his tutorial (see link above).
• ProgressBar Unity3D Plugin from Eri is used as progress bar (on loading files). More info and licensing are available here: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/30891 https://eri-st.eu/

To-DOs:

• Add computational heuristics and algorithms for more varied graph visualizations.
• Add link click to navigate.
• Implement inbuilt photo feed for each node.
• Polishes.

Authors:

aj470, scarletknight11, alexjjia