Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Visualizing space-time networks

I've said this on Twitter before but I should say it here as well. Craig Taylor and the Ito World team have some of the best data visualizations of geospatial data related to cities and transport networks.

Just a few days ago, Craig tweeted some of his latest work with neat visualizations of drive-time network for catchment area analysis. Here is a video comparing different cities in the UK and a brief explanation on how to read the dataviz.
"30 minute drive time analysis from major UK cities visualised as 3d coral geometry. 
The thickness of artery is proportional to the number of networks connected to it indicating busier routes. The falloff in height is linked to the proximity to the centre. 
Corals aren’t normalised in scale as the purpose of this is visualising the form and pattern the networks create. Animation is a boomerang motion scaling from 0 to 30 min and back again. Congestion/traffic not accounted for."

click at the bottom of the video to watch it in full screen and high definition



Yep, there are some obvious parallels here with Time Geography and in particular with the representation of space-time prisms. The static version of the space-time trees gives a sharper visualization of the data.

The space-time tree, or 3d coral geometry as Craig said.

and the inverted original dataviz, "the drive time web"