“Green Phosphor’s product is called Glasshouse, and it is a gateway which can take a database query or a spreadsheet and place a 3D representation of it into a virtual world. Users can see data, and drill into it; re-sort it; explore it interactively – all from within a virtual world.”

But as reported in the post the capabilities of data visualization are many:

“First off I believe that visualization of money in/money out could have turned authorities on to the fishy accounting Enron was up to, and caught them earlier. Perhaps better visualization would have revealed Madoff’s ponzi scheme as well. It’s a matter of seeing the big picture; money must come from somewhere and be tied to intrinsic value at some point. My third example is similar, but rather than money in/money out it is about energy in/energy out. I believe proper visualization of the process for producing ethanol fuel, including energy cost of fertilizer, would reveal the uselessness of subsidizing cornbased ethanol as an alternative to fossil fuels.”

Now imagine being able to walk through, and interact with financial reporting data, via XBRL brought into virtual worlds like Second Life – the possibilities seem endless. Glasshouse is now in public beta, I plan on trying it out soon and will certainly report back with visuals of XBRL data when that happens.

http://www.cybertechnews.org/?p=1168