#urbadiary

The publication has been reworked and we can now feature an updated version of the preview. See previous version HERE. We also offer a few more pages for you to read. Not much sorry. Each chapter is lead in by an essay, each written by an academic or professional with a specific interest and expertise in the particular topic. It will set the scene to the topic and beyond. The book is illustrated with 400 tiny graphics in black and white. The content is full indexed to find tags easily. References and links in the text are fully ported and are directly accessible through the blog, so no tedious typing here. Contributors: Sandra Abegglen, Matthew Dance, Jeff Ho, Ana Rebelo, Luis Suarez, Zahra Azizi The preview below is really only a preview. Intro and outro are more or less complete, each chapter is only present with the first page of each section. But it should give you an idea of what the book will be like. Anyway, also the cover now goes bold very much in the sense of the recent trend of pimped publication. You can see this as an homage to all these books that appear big and bold, but actually have some really ephemeral content. Feedback welcome! If you would like to have a look at the full publication drop me a line and I can give you access.

The POPFest 2009 is this year at LSE in London, from July 2nd to July 4th. It is a platform for mainly postgrad students to show and discuss their work. “POPFEST is a population studies conference organised by postgraduates for postgraduates with the aim of providing a relaxed, supportive environment for students to come together to present work and discuss ideas. This is a great opportunity to meet other students studying in the same area, practice your presentation skills and get some useful feedback from your peers. The conference provides a forum for postgraduate students studying any aspect of population in disciplines including Social Sciences, Demography, Human Geography, Social Anthropology, Social Statistics, Health, Development, Social Policy and other related fields. Presenters have an excellent opportunity to discuss their work in front of their peers and have a chance to get feedback and ideas from fellow researchers. Those not wishing to present can get an idea of the sort of research being conducted by their peers and make valuable contacts for the future. POPFEST is an ideal spring-board for all postgraduates regardless of their stage of research providing an opportunity to practice ones presentation skills, whether as a paper or poster display, before facing more demanding academic conferences. PopFest has survived over the past 14 years due to the support and good will of the postgraduate community and the BSPS. For PopFest to continue this support and enthusiasm is essential. The BSPS is very keen to ensure the development of postgraduate population research through PopFest and has confirmed its continuing support to the conference. ” This years Timetable.

CASA has recently been awarded “Centre of Excellence“ by Autodesk, and they provide their software packages. The software no is available in CASA and a few projects are taking shape on them. See a recent post by digitalUrban on the latest project using LandXplorer to map aerial images onto a 3d Lidar London model. An other software of the Autodesk package is the Map 3D, a sort of AutoCAD GIS. On their website it is described as ”AutoCAD® Map 3D software enables engineers, planners, mapping technicians, surveyors, and GIS professionals to directly access, edit, visualize, and analyze a broad variety of CAD and spatial data in a familiar AutoCAD® software environment.“ With the experience from the previous mapping of the UrbanDiary data, this product looked as if it would be worth having a look at. The initial came from a link I came a cross on the web while searching for something related to a csv file. On map3d.wordpress.com I cam ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ a blog post on how to import a csv file into Map 3D and as the UrbanDiary data was available in csv I thought I just give it a go.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Image by UrbanTick - Screenshots from Map 3D Image by UrbanTick - Screenshots from Map 3D - attribute box It is actually straightforward once I figured out that the data formats in the csv file have to be set to number rather than text. Anyway, the data can be linked in via the OCDB data base link. This will include all the attributes from the csv table. So far so good the data is there and can be used. With the help of the attribute table, changes in the visualization are simple. The rule builder is easy to use and produces good results, including an automatically generated key Image by UrbanTick - Screenshots from Map 3D - generated key Image by UrbanTick - Screenshots from Map 3D - data displayed per week day including a label So for not having used the software before I am quite satisfied with the result. Importing the data, sorting it according to the attribute table and apply visualization characteristics depending on features, not bad. It appears that the program slows down quite quickly. The first run was with a subset o the UrbanDiary data, some 10’000 points and this was fine. Going up to 45’000 points used quite a lot of power and slowed down the machine drastically. Switching from 2D mode into 3D did not really work and it was a struggle to get back without quitting the program. The next thing was the analyzing functions. Using the buffer worked ok, again on a subset of points, but the machine got slower again. Meaning it was not responding at times and I would get the funny message by Vista ”The program is currently not responding would you like to quit or wait for the program?“ Of course I want to wait for the program and eventually it would come back. The first crash was not far and after the importing some aerial imagery of London to give the points some context I gave up. But only for today, because I was impressed by the program’s user-friendly approach. Compared to other GIS that are very technical, Map 3D was a little bit intuitive to me. I am now telling myself that the performance problems are all down to me not being experienced enough and it will be all better next time. The next thing to try is eventually to get the GPS data from Map 3D into Autodesk 3D Studio Max for visualization purposes. This would be the software way, people here in CASA are currently working on a programming solution for this.

As a second phase of the UrbanDiary project, the data collection focuses on the participants perception of their routine and activity. During semi structured interviews detailed information to accompany and extend the data collected via the GPS device. The selected topics for the interview are personal information such as work status and family status, routine, schedule, spatial knowledge, contextual knowledge, transport, memory of routes and GPS device usage. During the interview the participants are also asked to write down information about their daily, weekly and yearly schedule and also to draw a mental map of their travel from home to work and back. Some preliminary observations from on e of the first sketches drawn by a UD participant, looking at mode of transport, sequence of noting down descriptive elements and a comparison to the GPS record of the route. Mental Map analysis by UrbanTick for UrbanDiary Of course also the way participants’ use the space given to work on is already very interesting and in this case only the very top of the sheet was used. Participants are asked to comment on what they draw and the transcript of this helps to interpret the drawing, for example regarding the sequence or comments they have made about their feelings in connection with a certain element. The first two analysis diagrams look at relationship of mode of transports (top) and sequence of map creation (bottom), both based on the participants meal map. What looks like another of the GPS records is more of a dot-to-dot doodle. Mode of transport in this example is bus journeys and walking. Comparing this to the GPS record (left) it is clearly visible that the length of the bus journey is different. In the mental map the walked part is in much more detail represented than the bus journey. This is only to give a quick update on the UD project. The amount of data that these interviews provide for the project will keep me busy for a while. The next update will be on a comparison of schedules.

While working with the GPS track data of the UrbanDiary project, in connection with the series of interviews I am conducting, I suddenly recognized the different shapes and patterns that are being produced by the participants. Really funny shapes and forms, but always with a number of strong fix points. The shape is determined by a number of factors such as the spatial relationship of destinations, the distances traveled, the amount of travel and the intensity of repetition. The first point, relationship of destinations makes for the overall shape and the last point, the intensity of repetition makes for the character of the shape. The images are all generated from data of participants who have a track record of two month and the drawings are the same scale. Images by UrbanTick for UrbanDiary

UD_TwoMonth_Detail_Bloomsbury from urbanTick on Vimeo.

The new and updated UrbanDiary Map is here! Bigger, bolder and with even more tracks! It contains now two month of tracking data of sixteen different participants. The collection is still growing and will be updated continuously. After this period of two month the participants routes have mainly established and show up bold on the map. Nevertheless some one off routes continue to appear and they could be of much interest. Images by urbanTick for UrbanDiary - click on image for detailed map

A refreshed visualization of the space-time diagram, called the aquarium. This time with the all new UrbanDiary project data. Schematic representation of a Saturday track record of three participants of the UrbanDiary project recorded in London. The data is plotted with the z-axis representing time of the day. The time frame in this case is 24 hours and starts from the bottom  at 00h00 passing the time upwards to 24h00. Each participant has a time reference icon over the home location, where the journey starts and ends.  There is one female and two male participants, of whom the female and one male participant have family. The single male goes in to work just as normal although it is a Saturday and returns home in the afternoon to do some sport activity locally where he lives. His journey starts at 08h23, ends at 17h19 and travels around 15 km. The woman does some local activities with her family and travels in to her workplace briefly later on. She starts her day at 07h01, ends at 20h09, and covers 30 km wile traveling. The Second male participant spends his day in the local area. This journey starts at 11h45, ends at 18h53, and measures 5 km. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​ Image by UrbanTick for UrbanDiary 2009 - click on the image for large version