Biophysics people use a digital equivalent to this. In in vitro DNA replication experiments, one of the building blocks of DNA is made to be fluorescent so as i

Biophysics people use a digital equivalent to this. In in vitro DNA replication experiments, one of the building blocks of DNA is made to be fluorescent so as it is added to the long DNA chain being synthesised you can visually observe it's progress (under a fancy microscope). If you take a 1-pixel slice for each millisecond and stich them together you get a kind of graph of fluorescence extending in length over time. Some incredible insights into DNA replication have been made using this technique.