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Jan 21
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London’s Twitter Island – From ArcGIS to Max to Lumion

By 3D Max, ArcMap, data viz, ESRI, london, Lumion, Twitter 3 Comments

As part of the MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation, here in CASA at The Bartlett, University College London, we are exploring new methods and techniques for visualising data. As part of the course we are looking at collecting data from the Twitter API and using the resulting .csv file as an input into a variety of software, including Processing and ArcMap.
One such known example is the London Twitter map by UrbanTick, developed using the data collector created by Steven Gray and imported by Fabian into ArcMap, it developed a style of its own as the ‘NewCity Landscape’ collection. From a digital urban point of view the next stage of the map is a 3D extension, a transformation that proved surprisingly difficult due to the nature of combining the worlds of traditional GIS and game engines such as Lumion.
We are still in the early stages of development but the movie below illustrates the NewCity Landscape Map of London visualisation in Lumion as a ‘Twitter Island’:


Music by Pigeman over at MP3 Unsigned. There are of course many arguments on the pro’s and con’s of visualising data in such a way, indeed the visualisation is developed to open up the debate as part of the MRes course allowing various visualisation techniques to be compared from the same data set.
We will have more updates as the visualisation develops, along with a walk through of how to build it. If your interested in such output our MRes is now open for applications, entry 2012-2013…

Dec 24
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Landscape and the Internet – 9 Papers in Future Internet Special Issue

By 3d landscapes, Future Internet, landscape and the internet, Publications No Comments

We are pleased to announce a special issue of  Future Internet, Volume 3, Issue 4 (December 2011).  Focussed on Landscape and the Internet and edited by Dr. Christopher Pettit Principal Research Scientist and Research Manager, Spatial Information Sciences, Department of Primary Industries Victoria, Australia and Dr. Arzu Coltekin,Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 80750 Zürich, Switzerland, the issue represents a series of notable papers:

Table of Contents:

Olaf Schroth, Ellen Pond, Cam Campbell, Petr Cizek, Stephen Bohus and Stephen R. J. SheppardArticle: Tool or Toy? Virtual Globes in Landscape Planning Future Internet 2011, 3(4), 204-227; doi:10.3390/fi3040204
http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/3/4/204/



Philip Paar and Jörg RekittkeArticle: Low-Cost Mapping and Publishing Methods for Landscape Architectural Analysis and Design in Slum-Upgrading Projects Future Internet 2011, 3(4), 228-247; doi:10.3390/fi3040228
http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/3/4/228/



Mark Imhof, Matthew Cox, Angela Fadersen, Wayne Harvey, Sonia Thompson, David Rees and Christopher PettitArticle: Natural Resource Knowledge and Information Management via the Victorian Resources Online Website Future Internet 2011, 3(4), 248-280; doi:10.3390/fi3040248
http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/3/4/248/



David Parsons, Ramesh Lal and Manfred Lange
Article: Test Driven Development: Advancing Knowledge by Conjecture and Confirmation
Future Internet 2011, 3(4), 281-297; doi:10.3390/fi3040281
http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/3/4/281/



Haifeng Li and Bo WuArticle: A Service-Oriented Architecture for Proactive Geospatial Information Services
Future Internet 2011, 3(4), 298-318; doi:10.3390/fi3040298
http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/3/4/298/



Subhash Sharma, Christopher Pettit, Ian Bishop, Pang Chan and Falak ShethArticle: An Online Landscape Object Library to Support Interactive Landscape Planning
Future Internet 2011, 3(4), 319-343; doi:10.3390/fi3040319
http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/3/4/319/



Saviour Formosa, Vincent Magri, Julia Neuschmid and Manfred SchrenkArticle: Sharing Integrated Spatial and Thematic Data: The CRISOLA Case for Malta and the European Project P
lan4all Process Future Internet 2011, 3(4), 344-361; doi:10.3390/fi3040344
http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/3/4/344/



Sabrina Lai and Corrado ZoppiArticle: An Ontology of the Strategic Environmental Assessment of City Masterplans 
Future Internet 2011, 3(4), 362-378; doi:10.3390/fi3040362
http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/3/4/362/



Arzu Coltekin and Tumasch ReichenbacherReview: High Quality Geographic Services and Bandwidth Limitations
Future Internet 2011, 3(4), 379-396; doi:10.3390/fi3040379
http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/3/4/379/


Full details can be found over at the Future Internet Journal. 

Dec 20
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All the London Datastore Maps

By data viz, london datastore, NCRM, opendata, Projects, TALISMAN No Comments

Richard Milton here in CASA is working on our new National Centre for Research Methods funded TAILISMAN project. One aspect of the project is looking into data visualisation, here we present a guest post by Richard on the automatic visualisation of data from the London Datastore...
This started out as an experiment in how to handle geospatial data published in Internet data stores. The idea was to make an attempt at structuring the data to make searching, comparison and visualisation easier. The London Datastore publish a manifest file which contains links to CSV files that are in the correct format for MapTube to handle, so I wrote a process to make the maps automatically. The results are one thumbnail map for every field in the first hundred datasets on the London Datastore. I stopped the process once I got to a hundred as it was taking a long time.

 
 A section of the results are shown below:
 

 

 
You can view the zoomable version via the full 10,000 pixel image created using the Image Cutter.
The name of the dataset and name of the column being visualised are shown in the top left of the map, while the colour scale is a Jenks 5 class range between the min and max of the data. This sort of works, but raises more questions than it answers about the data. To start with, one interesting thing that jumps out of the data is that there was a step change in London population around 1939, from the “London Borough Historic Population” dataset.
The first problem with this is that there is no structure to how the thumbnail maps are placed on the image. The idea is to use a data classifier and group maps according to how similar they are, so distance would be proportional to similarity. This work is still in progress.
The next problem is with the colour scales, as it commits the cardinal sin of not showing one. The maps are supposed to be representative, so all use the green Jenks 5 classes, but it’s obvious that this has gone wrong on most of the maps. The reason for this is that the London Datastore include data in the CSV files at different geographic scales. Most of the maps show London at Borough level, but also contain data for England, Scotland and Wales which mess up the automatic colour scale. The top range ends up being the larger geographic areas which you can’t see, so the maps end up with just four classes on them. On some of the maps you can see the Government Office Regions (Midlands, Wales, South East etc), along with Borough level data for London.
A map showing data at different geographic scales. London has data at Borough level while the rest of the country is at GOR level.
The final problem, which also relates to different geographic scales, is to do with almost all the maps visualising either a count of people or events. Most maps are a population of some kind, so displaying population density rather than count would make a lot more sense.
As a proof of concept, this demonstrates that we can handle the maps automatically from an Internet data store. One thing that’s obvious from looking at the zoomable map view is that you need the ability to click on one of the thumbnails and go straight through to the full size map with all the information about what is it. There is also no search facility so you can’t find anything, but the next proof of concept is where things will start to get interesting….
 

We will be following progress and the forthcoming TALISMAN project blog with more results in the new year.

Dec 20
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The Sky Scratcher – Architecture for Cats on Kickstarter needs your help

By Posts One Comment

The Sky Scratcher is a kickstarter project which at the time of writing has 38 hours to go – in short there is still time to back it.

If we had a cat here at digitalurban it would without doubt be the Sky Scratcher – a revolutionary, architectural spin on the cat scratching post.  Built from more than 125 corrugated cardboard die-cut pads, a bamboo plywood base and center pole, the goal is to use Eco-friendly materials that are both safe for your cats and aesthetically pleasing to the human eye. 


Set up my Mike Estes, his love for all things creative drove him to reinvent the cat scratching post with The Sky Scratcher. Mike states that not only will your feline friends enjoy scratching to their hearts content, you will also enjoy a high quality piece of art that will add a stylish accent to any room in your home or office…

We would love to see this enter production, head over to the Sky Scratcher page on KickStater to give them your backing…

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