Sexy Data

Recently I read a blogpost about the sexyness of handling huge datasets, being a statistican, etc.
You can find it here:
http://dataspora.com/blog/sexy-data-geeks/

I have some words to add, according to TLS.
It's quite nice to work with geodata.. For instance I was always impressed by sat images. (And everyone likes google maps.) Working with 3D pointclouds (of real buildings, statues, terrain, whatever), and making them useful is an interesting job.

Now to Data Munging: we have previous posts about working with coordinates (awk, especially), but thats only tip of the iceberg. You have to clean the 3D point cloud, remove not static objects (for instance cars and people on a street), take care about the correctness of the coordinates (1-2cm difference between two intersecting pointcloud is an everyday issue), uniting the intersecting point clouds to a bigger one, etc.

And yes, Visualisation. After creating a 3D model, you can put the real texture on it, with the help of some HD photos. After that you have a really nice object model. And thats just where the work starts!

After reading the beforementioned post, I've had the feeling that working with laser is sexy as well..