#data interaction

Interesting data project from by Christian Marc Schmidt and Liangjie Xia:

"Invisible Cities visualizes the social networks in the urban environment. It displays geocoded activity from online services such as Twitter and Instagram in real-time and aggregate. Real-time activity is represented as individual nodes that appear whenever a message or image is posted. Aggregate activity is reflected in the underlying terrain: over time, the landscape warps as data is accrued, creating hills and valleys representing areas with high and low densities of data. Nodes are connected by narrative threads, based on themes emerging from the overlaid information. These pathways create dense meta-networks, blanketing the terrain and connecting disparate areas of the city. Through an immersive, three-dimensional information landscape, the piece creates a parallel experience to the physical environment, one of intersections, discovery, and memory.

Lovely project by the guys at Trace Media.

Not dissimilar to some of the other projects featured on Visual Everything earlier, the interactive maps track data from social uploads, initially concentrating on Flickr data.

Unlike some of the other projects previously featured, the team there have built interactive capability into the product that allows you to alter the visual appearance of the maps, select time periods and filter tags. Have a play with the Tokyo version.

It provides and insight into what people are talking about, viewing and sharing around the global cities.

Outside of the obvious role this has for highlighting tourist hot spots in large cities, it could have a powerful role in documenting events unfolding.