In an effort to visualize and harness new NBA player shot chart data from Grantland staff writer, Kirk Goldsberry, ESPN challenged the RCS team to devise a real time VIZ “simulator” to work like a graphical editor while appearing to be an artistically “rendered” scene. Due to time constraints, and the harnessing of the new data sets, a rendered graphics strategy was simply not flexible enough to support the needs of the client. RCS provided a solution to generate these Grantland segments by building a complex VIZ scene triggered by custom interfacing made for any story producer with minimal training to operate.
The interface allows the flexibility for the “editor” to turn on or off multi-states of shot chart visualizations, in real time, from any of the 34 determined camera angles built in to the single scene. While seamlessly moving from any camera angle to another, the editor can also turn on or off shot chart data sets from any of the individual ten shot “zones” represented on the half court display. Each unique “command” triggered by the user can be saved in a “playlist” and played back for later output to air. The “Grantland Shot Chart” has recently made it’s very successful debut on the Grantland.com web site.