Thursday 4 September 2008

The New vs. the Old - Flow Mapping

Back again to a familiar topic - flow mapping. In the past all we had was paper and two dimensions. Now we have e-everything and things can easily be displayed in three dimensions (or 2.5D as we say in the GIS world). The reason for this post is that I'm currently revising some maps for a journal and I have come to the conclusion that some things just can't be effectively displayed in a static, old fashioned manner - they must be made interactive to work properly.

The map below shows about as much as it is possible to show in a traditional geovisualisation of migration. Here I have shown all moves into Manchester (the local authority) between 2000 and 2001, with reciprical links (i.e. where people have moved both in and out along the flow line path) in red, with unique inflows in yellow. I'm busy with other things now, and am still working a lot on the e-learning and screencasting side of things, so time to go...