It is intuitive that when you have a short distance to travel it is always faster to walk than wait around for a bus. But exactly how long should you wait? We decided to do some calculations to find out. Click here to see Walk or Bus?
The Ebstorf Mappamundi – map of the 13th c. Christian World
The Ebstorf mappamundi was drawn in 13th century Saxony and depicts the Christian worldview within the body of a crucified Christ. The map illustrates both the “known world” as well as significant landmarks and points of interest for the curious pilgrim.
Area Scaled Map from 1930 – Markets are People
“Markets are People” is a beautifully drawn map. It uses area-distortion to show population at both the state and city level. This is the first map we have seen that uses the area-distortion method at two resolutions. The effect is visually accurate, highly readable, and offers deeper insight into the data than similar maps that offer only one level of detail.
Sorting Colors
We recently needed to sort the pixels in an image by their color. On first attempt, we sorted by simple RGB values: first sort on R, then on G, then B. But it turns out there are many other possibilities for sorting colors. Every permutation of the RGB letters could be considered (RBG, GBR, GRB, [...]
Graph Visualization with Edge Bundling
We recently encountered (via infosthetics) a paper from Danny Holten and Jarke J. van Wijk that demonstrates an algorithm for creating beautiful graph visualizations. The original paper is Force-Directed Edge Bundling for Graph Visualization, published in 2009. In computer science theory, a graph is a collection of nodes and the edges between them. Graphs are [...]
Visualizing Radiohead’s Kid A
Visualizations show relative pitch strength across the duration of the song. Colors scheme is derived from the Kid A album cover. Song analysis by Echo Nest via the Echo Nest Remix toolkit. Rendering was done with PyCairo.
Tweemap – Mapping Twitter Followers
A tool to map your Twitter followers. Tweemap shows up to 10,000 followers for any given user. The Google Maps Javascript API provides core mapping utilities, and the Twittervision API was used for geocoding.
Steve Reich, Pulses
Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. The first section, “Pulses” is visualized above using custom Python scripts. Analysis of the music is provided by the Echo Nest API.
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See also, Song Visualizations with Echo Nest.Jason Salavon
We find the work of Jason Salavon highly inspirational. At the intersection of art and visualization, his images are distinctive for their surface and immediate graphical language while also communicating significant stories of process and history. By merging dozens or hundreds images that share some common theme, Salavon helps us extract high-level information about common [...]
Ten Examples of the Subway Map Metaphor
The visual components of a subway map make it a great metaphor for grouping and linking ideas or things across many different conceptual realms. We’ve collected here ten excellent examples of the subway map metaphor. 1. Milky Way The Milky Way Transit Authority shows the spiral of the galaxy, with major constellations and nebula appearing [...]
