Pergel
A pergel is the compass a draughtsman drew with; Pergel is a museum of the forms people drew to read data, most of them made by hand before software.
857 forms; 57 studied from their original pages; 4 redrawn by us as working generators.
Each room holds the forms that read one kind of data. A timeline and a list of fields lead to the same forms by other roads.
The small drawings are skeletons we drew, not the original plates; every card says how far its form has been studied, and the original page is one click away.
Rooms
Change over time 172
Values in order: along the years, the hours, or any scale that runs one way. The forms here show how a value moves along it.
How a group spreads 101
Many measurements of one group: where most of them sit and how far the rest reach. The forms here show the shape of the crowd, not one member.
Parts of a whole 55
Parts that add up to a total, or factors that multiply to one. The forms here show each part's share.
Charts that compute 185
A relation among quantities drawn so that the answer can be read off with a ruler, a thread or the eye. The chart does the arithmetic.
Values across a surface 44
One value at every point of a plane that is not a map: a slice of air, a sheet of metal, a pair of measurements. The forms here show how it rises and falls across the plane.
Links and trees 126
Things joined to other things: families, flows, steps of a process, atoms in a molecule. The forms here show what is connected to what.
Lives and events 39
Dated events of particular people, ships or trains: when each began, moved and ended. The forms here show each one apart.
Places 135
Values that belong to places on the earth: towns, regions, routes. The forms here put each value where it happened.