no map for this territory · 2010-02-05 15:43
I’ve been playing with Mapumental a bit, as it’s a front end to an awful lot of data, particularly public transport. I’ve been creating maps of how far you can travel in an hour for a few places:
1 hour from EC2:
1 hour from SW11:
1 hour from W9:
But the maps only show one snapshot, one piece of the story. Being able to grab a slider, and see how things react, makes a difference – looking not only at the rate of change, but for the rate of change of the rate of change. There is no single view that can either capture or convey this, no static insightful picture. It’s constructed in the mind, giving an instinctive feel for the data.
I’ve made a few videos of just moving the time slider as smoothly as possible. Watching these, on loop, dragging the isochrone forwards and backwards, is the only way to make sense.
from SW11:
from W9:
(and thanks to Stamen, mysociety and Channel 4 for Mapumental)