May 2024 | Summer, a Breakfast

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Hi there, 

My name is Saachi and on May 1st, 2024, I started a one-year sabbatical to focus on a personal environmental communication project. 

Four weeks ago, I was an analyst for a big bank. I spent my days making business intelligence reports about financial data or leading a small team to do the same. During this year though, I'm learning about the sustainability of urban waterfronts. Because I like digitally sculpting and painting food, the project will focus on the food supply chain. Since I like reading manga and watching people play video games, I will present what I learn as a visual, interactive story, which takes place in a lakefront city like Toronto, Canada (my hometown). 

Basically, I want to visually explore how a community could use the lakefront - for better or worse - to create a more secure and sustainable food supply chain. Think less academic paper and more cosy speculative fiction. The type that makes you slowly absorb info while curled up in your favourite spot with a hot mug of whatever you like best. I'm going to use and exercise all my current skills, and hopefully gain some new ones on the way. 

My thinking was that every month I would build

• a 3D, interactive data visualization that I could share online for anyone to use
• a chapter of the story built in Unreal Engine (a game dev software), shared via filmed gameplay 
• a blog post to help me look back on my progress.  

12 data viz. 12 visual, interactive stories. 12 blog posts.  I want to divide these 12 items into the four seasons, starting with Summer, and ending with Spring. Each month will represent a seasonal meal, hence “Summer, a breakfast” for May 2024.  

This is still the long-term plan. But already I'm kind of behind, but with good reason.

On nearly all fronts, I was very productive. I created a workflow for the project; found a useable dataset fairly quickly: link; created a script and storyboard for the first chapter that I thought worked with both the main concept and the dataset I found; and modelled some of the digital assets I would need for both the data viz and the chapter. 

I even sculpted and painted 3D models of my main characters and tested facial expressions, which you can see below. It felt like I was really humming along. But at some point in the second week, when I tried to make my first data viz with WebGL, I was forced to stop and reassess.   

In the past, I made a few, little WebGL applications with the help of AI (ChatGPT and Perplexity AI mainly). You can see the results here: https://saachisadcha.ca/webgl-example. They were fairly successful, so I attempted to make my data viz using the same method. But AI doesn’t know what a total newb I am (I age myself as I say that), and so the results of me using AI to build an interactive 3D website, with no foundational knowledge, were a blank screen and a lot of errors. Potentially some serious security issues. Less said about that the better. 

At this point, I had a choice. 

1. Build both the data viz and the chapter in Unreal, which does not have a WebGL option, and share the results via video
   1. pros - publish all the items I wanted to on this hectic self-imposed deadline
   2. cons - data viz is no longer shareable, and I learn nothing but what I need to for short-term success
2. Use something like Armory3D or Unity to build the data viz.
   1. pros - they're both free and accessible
   2. cons -  I've used both though and wasn't happy with the building or publishing workflow. Also Unity had a pricing scare last year
3. Put off building the rest of the Unreal chapter, and focus on learning how to build an interactive 3D website. Properly.
   1. pros - learn a fun skill and gain what I need for long-term success
   2. cons - fail to deliver everything that I wanted to in the first month

After a couple of gloomy days, I decided on option 3. It was an easy choice once I realized that no one knew or cared about my self-imposed schedule. For two weeks, I went through 30+ hours of 3JS Journey (https://threejs-journey.com/). This is an amazing resource by the way; I wish all my uni courses had been this good. Then, over-caffeinated but better equipped, I buckled down and got to work using Node.js. With the help of the course, its templates, and AI where needed, I created and deployed something shareable to the web. Below is a link to the result. My first data viz. I hand it to you as a child who gives you their first scribble with the full expectation that it’ll live forever on your fridge door.

https://may24dataviz.vercel.app/

The objective is to swap high-emission for low-emission ingredients and attempt to make this breakfast more sustainable. A "well done" appears if you get less than 25 kg CO2 e.

Please note: you can look at this using whatever device, in landscape or portrait, but due to performance limitations, the user experience is better on a desktop or tablet. It may also take a few seconds to load the first time, especially if you are using Safari. 

In the end, it’s just a bar chart. The simplest data viz there is. I’m still proud of the result though and I’m so happy I decided to go with option 3. Although I have a mountain to learn and improve on, I now have an easy-to-use template for my next data viz.

So that's the first data viz done. And this is the first blog post. But what about the chapter in Unreal? And my poor characters for whom I have yet to give shoulders and clothes? The new plan is to focus on their story and publish the first chapter next month in June. Maybe I’ll publish two chapters. We’ll see.

The overall plan is still to publish 12 each of interactive data viz, chapters, and blog posts by the end of this sabbatical. The context will still be food and how to make a Toronto-like lakefront more sustainable. 

I also mentioned speculative fiction right? Okay, so for every season the first month will be about what we can do now as individuals - ex. swap high emission for low-emission ingredients; the second month will be about what community-level solutions could be employed using the waterfront and what might happen; and the third month will be about the consequences and what the waterfront community will be like 5-25 years in the future. 

That’s a lot. Even just rereading what I just wrote makes my head spin.

But I think part of the fun will be to look back at this blog in April 2025 and compare what I thought I could build to what actually built. I’ll probably laugh at my younger self’s blind optimism. 

Cheers, 

Saachi Sadcha

May 2024; Summer, a breakfast