Scalar and the Knotted Line

Right now, someone is doing something incredibly cool and you’ve never heard of it. Maybe, you’ve never imagined it. Even with our overly interconnected world, cool things can pass you by. Today, I saw Scalar mentioned on Twitter. Scalar is a piece of software being created by the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture and is billed as a step in the transformation of scholarly communication. You can check out their video below and make up your own mind. It looks like it could be pretty powerful.


They have a few projects published in their showcase, one of which is the Knotted Line. While the backend is published using Scalar, it’s the front end which is really fun. It’s a creepy, interactive timeline type thing that invites the user to rip apart the line and peel open the background. I love it, because it’s unlike anything I’ve seen and it creates such a rich experience. Give it a look and let me know what you think.

Tim Lepczyk

Writer, Technologist, and Librarian.

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