Casualties of World War I, 2020

Interactive data visualization for the National Archives of Hungary

Casualties of World War I

This project uses a database of more than 200,000 casualties from the Hungarian troops of World War I from the National Archives of Hungary. Our web app is an interactive data visualization, where the visitor can explore the various facets and categories of this database in a visual and intuitive way.

View the data visualization here.

Virtual Memorial

The visual layout of the visualization takes its cues from the architecture of well-known memorials, such as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, and applies them in the virtual space of the web application. Using the regular mouse or touch controls, viewers can pan, zoom and rotate the camera and move through the space to look at the memorial from afar and the individual blocks up close. By clicking on a block, you can view the details of the corresponding person.

Exploring the Data

Each person is represented by a cuboid in the visualization. You can explore the data in a number of views, where the cuboids are grouped by their particular property, e.g. by religion.

By searching by name or clicking on a cuboid, the personal details for the particular deceased soldier, including name, arm and army of service, date, place and cause of death, appear in a dialog box.

In a custom map view, you can also explore the various locations and focal points where the soldiers died.