Live BMX freestyle Data Visualization

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— Research

Visualizing live BMX rider data presented a technical challenge to our team but also an opportunity to explore and reveal insights into rider performance. Targeting live spectators, jury members, and riders, we created an engaging visualization that tracked the rider throughout their performance enhancing the overall event experience for the Dutch national championships.

Urban Sports Performance Center used two Pozyx sensors on the bike to communicate over Ultra-wideband to 9 anchors that were placed around and above the BMX park. That data was processing into position data in near realtime and published via MQTT to the visualization render application. Because we wanted a highly graphical and high performing 3D environment in our visualization, we chose Unity3D as our rendering framework.

We alsomade a first rough web prototype.

— The event

During the event, the visuals were shown in a continuous cycle on a large LED display to provide additional perspectives on how well the riders were performing. It also informed spectators about the lineup of the heats, event sponsors, and the score and rank of the riders.

— Visual design

Because this was the Dutch National Championships we used orange as a key color. Orange is the national color of The Netherlands and is also the corporate color of the KNWU. We combined the orange with a dark grungy blue atmosphere, on top of which we presented the data in bright white, highlighting the additional data layer. The rider data is traced on the screen using a tire track print as a metaphor and depending on the rider speed has closer or wider dash patterns.

— Jury Dashboard

To help the jury judge the riders, we created a dashboard that shows an overview of the rider’s performance. The dashboard showcases several metrics about the rider including how high the rider jumped and how well he/she used the entire park.