Indeed, first complexity needs to be reduced in order to makea clear modelof whatever you are trying to evaluate before you can use those mountains of data effectively.
It can be made amodelof DNA, or amodelofa whole city like this one is, and sometimes they can make the model exist in the silicon ofa computer, so you've got a computer model, and other times, they actually use real silicon and sand, which they're doing it, in this case, like a giant hands-on model.