Atlases by Jared Lang - Atlas 2a |
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Atlas 2a In Atlas #2 the research group chose to show select cities within their regions. The regional views were selected because they most clearly displayed each cities' hinterworld. Similar to Atlas #2, Atlas #2A is designed to illustrate how connectivity is changing absolute geography. [1] But when the research group was developing Atlas #2, they realized an interested trend in the data that deserved to be represented in its own Atlas. The research group noticed that when they zoomed out from the regional view of the cities in Atlas #2 to the full view of the visualizations, many cities' connectivity values were so weak that they were pushed off the world map. We reasoned that if all the cities are weighted against each other, then they are relative to each other, and as many cities must move away from the central city as those that move closer. But the research group could not image that so many cities would be pushed so far "Out of This World". Hence, we developed the "Out of This World" Atlas to illustrate how this phenomenon works.
for all 10 views click here or scroll down the page The Method of Creation: 1. We selected the top 123 cities in terms of their global network connectivity and measured the connectivity between each city and the other 122 cities. All 123 cities and their connectivity values are weighed against each other. Connectivity and absolute distance are made relative to each other, and city position is shifted based on connectivity strength. Seventy-seven cities, representing all world cities within North America, Europe, and Pacific Asia are used in this Atlas. 2. New weighted locations for the cities are created, and lines are also created to show the path the cities traveled toward or away from the central city. Points represent cities in their new location, and the lines show the path the cities took from their absolute location. The path is a trajectory from the central point to the absolute location. 3. ESRI's software, ArcGIS v.8, is used to create the weighted cities locations and visualizations from the raw connectivity and absolute distance values for each city. 4. In order for the maps to be viewed by users, they were exported into .jpeg picture files. 6. For those users who desire to manipulate the visualizations in a GIS, the Base Layer Shapefiles are included - ! 212MB (click here). This includes the country outlines and each individual city's point shapefile with connection and distance values included. If the user is interested in how the layers were constructed, then they can e-mail Jared Lang at jlangcal@hotmail.com. Understanding the Visualizations: 1. The points shown in the visualizations are the new city locations once they are adjusted based on their relative connectivity score. The points travel a specific distance along the trajectory of the line drawn between the original point and the central point. The start of the line is the original location (absolute geography) of the city. 2. Blue dots and lines move closer to the central city. Red dots and lines move away to the central city. 3. We picked optimal views for each visualization to the entire extent of the cities' hinterworlds. If you have any questions about the Atlases, or if you want to obtain the details about how the visualizations were created, you can e-mail Jared Lang, Danny Dorling, or Peter Taylor Endnotes [1] Kruskal, J.B. and Wish, M. (1978). Multidimensional Scaling. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
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