
Itinerant – a fuzzy weather forecast app - pttrn
http://brutalism.rs/project/itinerant/
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tincholio
I think this goes a bit too much in the "imprecise" direction, so much so that
it doesn't convey actual useful information (at least in those images shown).
First off, short-term weather forecasts are not inaccurate, for the most part,
so knowing that the temperature will be 21C (±1 degree) is more informative
than knowing it'll be "brownish mass". Secondly, the heatmap style makes more
sense when it's overlaid on top of an actual map, and you have an actual scale
to interpret it.

What does "cool", "warm", "warmer" mean in here?

That being said, the images look pretty nifty, so it has that going for it.

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pttrn
I've updated the article to be more clear about the existence of the auxiliary
interface. Thanks for the comment, super useful!

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tincholio
Sure thing!

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nemo1618
I really like this. Reminds me of the difference between analog and digital
watches: the former gives you a "fuzzy" time, but also a more visceral
understanding of how "close" one time is to another. Maximum precision can be
useful, but it also feels unnatural, more appropriate for machines than
humans. It's important to remember that accuracy and precision are not the
same thing!

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pradn
Time is reckoned in quarters in many parts of the world, especially rural
areas. At my computer job, I can always see the time in minutes, so I leave
for meetings with the least amount of wasted time. Precision is both
indicative and generative of action.

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anonytrary
This is absolutely brilliant. The only barrier I see to these new visual
languages is the initial barrier to learning the language. Either way, I hope
more human interface research starts exploring this avenue.

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justusthane
This would be incredible as a live background, both because it's aesthetically
stunning, and also for the information it can provide at a glance. I don't
know enough about iOS to know whether (weather?) that's possible or not.

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pttrn
I'm not sure, although I developed this in Unity so I imagine it would be a
lot of jumping through hoops to get there... (upvote for the pun :D)

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rakoo
The idea that vision is so powerful that it can recognize shapes to the point
of building a language instantly reminded me of the language used by the
aliens in Arrival ([https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/14/dissecting-the-alien-
lan...](https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/14/dissecting-the-alien-language-in-
arrival/)). I'm sure Itinerant won't go so far as create a whole new grammar
but both the blurry, ink-like feeling and the reliance on patterns are
interesting.

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Siira
I think a free demo should be available, or at least some clear evidence of
what information this app provides that a traditional one doesn’t. You have
mentioned some of the shortcomings of traditional apps, but you have not
demonstrated solving those. As of now, this app seems more of a beautiful art
project than a pragmatic weather app, to me.

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OceanKing
I like the app, it’s very intuitive, I’m considering making it my go-to
weather resource. I think it could be improved by adding an hourly forecast -
perhaps consider adding a slider for how the blob will change over the course
of the next 24 hours?

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pttrn
Thanks! I'm not sure what you mean by hourly forecasts, you can already swipe
left/right to change the observed point in time?

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OceanKing
Oh wow, you can! This feature is super cool, I didn’t see it mentioned in the
app description though. Thanks!

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sdwr
Beautiful! Mapping data into raw-er perceptual forms feels like a rich area
for exploration, plus you get to flex coding and design skill at the same
time. Any plans for an android port?

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pttrn
Thanks! I would love to do an Android build but time and resources (e.g.
devices to test on) are scarce. I haven't ruled it out though, let's see how
the iOS version fares financially ;)

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oliv__
I like the idea of leveraging our already powerful sense of vision and pattern
matching to communicate the weather but I feel like this does more to hinder
understanding than it does to facilitate it.

If you're going to use a visual language, why not use one that people already
know and recognize instead of introducing new patterns/symbols that you have
to learn?

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pttrn
That's a very valid point. One of the main reasons for introducing a new
visual language (apart from purely artistic ones) was to intentionally inject
a dose of ambiguity into the readings. Our existing visual systems (words,
numbers) are implying preciseness which is not always there with weather
forecasts (it is decreasing the further away you go from the current point in
time), and I was trying to break away from that.

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franga2000
While I still want to see the actual data, I would love this as the background
for my weather display. For the same reason I like analog/digital watch
combos: if you're just walking by, you can get a useful approximation, but the
very precise data is still right there when you want it.

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xled
Do you have any plans to port it to Android. Would love to try out the app.

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pttrn
I'm considering it!

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kqr
I've been meaning to put something similar together for a while now. The
visuals in this one are certainly more striking than what I had in mind. Neat!

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pttrn
Thanks! :) By all means do, we need more playful software if you ask me!

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kqr
Can I ask what data source you use? I have yet to find one which covers my
part of the globe, provides data for free, _and_ gives some measure of
confidence of the values reported.

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pttrn
I’m using DarkSky which gives you 1000 requests per day for free, and beyond
that the pricing is quite reasonable.

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localhostdotdev
quite amazing, would love this as a background on both phone and desktop

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ericschn
Looks great! Any thoughts on adding humidity?

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pttrn
Thanks! Yes I'm thinking about it!

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bussierem
Would it be possible for me to inquire as to what library you used to generate
the smoke samples for your app? I have a project where I wanted to do
something very similar (just not for weather), and I've been having the
hardest time finding a good library for it!

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pttrn
No library, I wrote the SDF/raymarching shaders from scratch. But there are
libraries out there...

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bussierem
Holy wow, that's pretty amazing! You should consider making it into a
opensource library for others to use, it's truly beautiful! Thank you for
making this project.

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pttrn
Thank you, I appreciate it! :) There's [https://kev.town/raymarching-
toolkit/](https://kev.town/raymarching-toolkit/) but I haven't tried it. Looks
promising!

