NewsInTimeAndSpace

Abstract

We present News in Time and Space (NiTS), a virtual reality application for visualization, filtering and interaction with geo-based events based on GDELT. The application can be used via VR glasses as well as a desktop solution for collaborative use by multiple users using Ubiq. The aim of NiTS is to provide a broad overview of global events and trends over time, creating a valuable resource for users seeking to understand and analyze world events. <!--The application NiTS, News in Time and Space, filters news report information from the GDELT database and visualizes it on a globe in either Virtual Reality or a desktop-designed version. This can be explored by a single user, but also includes support of adding a multi-person extension. Our aim is to provide a comprehensive picture of global events and trends over time making it a valuable resource to users seeking to understand and analyze world events.-->

Installation

After you have cloned the project, you need to complete the configurations below:

Database

Configuration

For MongoDB configuration, you need to customize the MongoDBConfig.cfg file in the server folder with your credentials. Example:

bash remote_host = databasehost remote_database = databasename remote_user = databaseuser remote_password = secret remote_port = 27017

Data

Our Application is relying on the DB to provide translations for CAMEO codes. To import use following command:

bash mongoimport -c CameoCodes -d %remot_database% --mode upsert --file ./server/EventCameoCodes.json --jsonArray

Server

To Start the Server with Docker, run the following commands:

bash cd server docker-compose up -d

The base server URL can be changed inside the 'ServerURL' gameobject inspector.

Data import

After the server is running, new data is imported from gdelt every 15 minutes. If you want to import data from a specific time period, you can do so by querying the server with the following URL: http://%SERVER_IP%/update/%DATE%. The date has to be in the format YYYY-MM-DD.

Cite

If you want to use the project please quote this as follows:

Julian Gagel, Jasper Hustedt, Timo Lttig, Theresa Berg, Giuseppe Abrami and Alexander Mehler. (2023). "News in Time and Space: Global Event Exploration in Virtual Reality." Proceedings of the 34th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media.

Globe

Our globe is based on Sebastian Lagues game: https://github.com/SebLague/Geographical-Adventures

BibTeX

@inproceedings{Gagel:et:al:2023, author = {Gagel, Julian and Hustedt, Jasper and L\"{u}ttig, Timo and Berg, Theresa and Abrami, Giuseppe and Mehler, Alexander}, title = {News in Time and Space: Global Event Exploration in Virtual Reality}, year = {2023}, isbn = {9798400702327}, publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3603163.3609080}, doi = {10.1145/3603163.3609080}, abstract = {We present News in Time and Space (NiTS), a virtual reality application for visualization, filtering and interaction with geo-referenced events based on GDELT. It can be used both via VR glasses and as a desktop solution for shared use by multiple users with Ubiq. The aim of NiTS is to provide overviews of global events and trends in order to create a resource for their monitoring and analysis.}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 34th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media}, articleno = {7}, numpages = {3}, location = {Rome, Italy}, series = {HT '23}, pdf = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3603163.3609080} }