170,000 Movies – One Interactive Map / / No Comments I recently reviewed the Movie Scene Map, an interactive map that makes it easy to find which iconic movie scenes were filmed right around the corner from your house. However, the fact that a film was shot near you doesn’t necessarily mean that the movie is set in your neighborhood. In many cases, filmmakers use one location to stand in for another, either because it’s cheaper, more convenient, or simply looks the part. For example, Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, while set almost entirely in the moody, nocturnal streets of Greenwich Village and Manhattan, was shot almost entirely in London. Even more astonishingly, London was also used to create some of the iconic, sweat-soaked... more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: 170000, Interactive, Movies
PIxel City Maps Are Here / / No Comments Isometric NYC has definitely started a new trend for developing pixelated interactive city maps. In the last few weeks it has inspired Isopolis in San Francisco and London, drawn in London. Now a new project is taking the idea to Brazil – and suggests that we could soon be seeing a lot more of these pixelated cities. EARTH TO PIXELS earthToPixels has now transformed aerial imagery of João Pessoa, a coastal city in northeastern Brazil, into a sprawling, SimCity-style isometric pixel-art map. Like the earlier maps, the pixelated map of João Pessoa is a joy to explore. Buildings, roads, parks and coastline are transformed into a giant isometric pixel-art landscape that you can... more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: City, Here, maps, Pixel
New York’s 1.67 Million Buildings Colored by Age / / No Comments The craze for ;building age maps seems to have faded in recent years, which is a shame because I think they can reveal a surprising amount about how a city has grown and changed over time. When you map the age of every building, patterns of development, expansion and redevelopment can suddenly become much easier to see in a way that is hard to grasp from standard historical records. New York in 1.67 Million Buildings is bucking the trend and is also a particularly impressive example of a building age map. The map colours New York’s buildings according to the decade in which they were constructed, creating an extraordinary colorful patchwork of the city’s architectural history. Zoom... more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: 1.67, Buildings, Colored, Million, York's
Geography and Genetics / / No Comments How closely related are the world’s populations? The Genetic Distance Map offers a fascinating way to explore that question by putting genetic similarity onto a map. Click on this map and the surrounding areas are then colored according to genetic distance. The result is a visual landscape of genetic similarity, with similar colours indicating populations that are genetically closer to one another. For most populations, the Genetic Distance Map displays smooth, concentric rings radiating outwards. In many locations, geographic distance mirrors genetic distance (e.g., clicking on central France highlights neighboring regions in Western Europe). As you might suspect populations that... more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Genetics, Geography
MapDraw: Take the Scenic Route / / No Comments MapDraw I use Organic Maps every day. Currently, I’m using it to follow the London Loop, with the route loaded as a GPX track on the map. I often get annoyed with the London Loop route – particularly when it takes me along a busy road when I can see what looks like a much more pleasant alternative just a few metres away. What I need is a simple tool that will allow me to draw my own alternative routes for the sections I don’t like and save them as GPX files, which I can then add to Organic Maps. Welcome to MapDraw. MapDraw is a browser-based map editor that allows you to import, draw and edit geographic data. So, if I decide that the official London Loop route has made a terrible... more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: MapDraw, route, Scenic, take
The Coffee Barista’s Maps / / No Comments Aside from maps, I would say my next biggest obsession is coffee. For the last couple of months, my favourite bean, Finca La Bolsa, has been out of season and unavailable from my local roasters. I’ve therefore been using the opportunity to experiment with beans from different regions, different taste profiles and different processing methods. For some reason, it has only just dawned on me that there might be some coffee maps I can use to help me discover new beans to add to my coffee repertoire. Map of Coffee Origins & Flavors Lightyear Coffee has produced a number of data visualizations based on data collected from coffee roasters. These include a Map of Coffee Origins &... more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Barista's, coffee, maps
15 Minute Towns Animated / / No Comments The 15-Minute City has become one of the most influential ideas in contemporary urban planning. Popularised by urbanist Carlos Moreno, the concept is beautifully simple: cities should be designed so that people can reach the things they need for everyday life – shops, healthcare, schools, green spaces, culture and leisure – within around 15 minutes of where they live, ideally on foot or by bicycle. The Essentials is an interactive map which asks exactly that question of New York City – and beautifully visualises the answer as an animated pathfinding map. Click anywhere on The Essentials and nine animated lines immediately shoot out from your chosen location, each searching... more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Animated, Minute, Towns
(MAPS) Painting By Number / / No Comments Here’s a little thing I discovered about Chicago: the higher a street’s number, the further south it is from the city center. You can see this very clearly on North America’s Numbered Streets. This interactive map colors “all streets with a ‘#st’, ‘#nd’, ‘#rd’, or ‘#th’ in their name in North America, as drawn from OpenStreetMap.” Zoom in on a city on North America’s Numbered Streets and, if it uses a numerical street-naming convention, you’ll probably notice that the smallest numbered streets are near the center of the city, while the largest numbers stretch out into the suburbs. In most cities,... more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: maps, Number, Painting