Network Included - The GeoTime 5.1 Update

The folks over at Oculus have been very busy developing the GeoTime software. Version 5 was released in the beginning of 2010 and they are going to released the latest update GeoTime 5.1 these days.
It includes some very interesting new features. The two major ones are the Network feature that allows the user to visualise the data as a network besides the time-space visualisation and the second major change is the support of the macOSx platform (see earlier post on mac adventours using GeoTime). This is in a sense a clear statement of independence, if there was critique that GeoTime integrates too closely with ArcGIS. However of course it continues to integrate well with Arc and support for the new ArcGIS 10 comes with the new GeoTime update.

The software is perfectly fitted for the UrbanDiary project that works with GPS tracks of individuals, investigating the spatial extension of everyday routines in the city. It is basically a purely spatial-temporal dataset. In a few easy steps it is possible to see the data visualised in a simultaneously temporal and spatial way, animate it as well as start analysing it.


Image by single-blogs / A view of different GPS tracks over the period of one month, using GeoTime and an OSM base map pulled in via ArcGIS.

The move away from a secondary software import via ArcGIS or Excel was a good move that came with version 5.0. The importing formats have been extended and redesigned with the release of version 5.0 to include CSV, XLS, and SHP file formats as well as the in version 4.0 existing KML. It is now handled directly by GeoTime through a functional assistant. With version 5.1 the import of GPX file format is added. Data from the GPS exported in this format can be loaded and added to a project directly.
The new dialogue allows to filter the data at import. This is useful especially for my crappy overloaded tables in which I tried to record way to much. The selection of just the five essential columns makes for a much more slik workflow.
GeoTIme focuses on temporal data, however the integration with realtime data has only be introduced recently with the 5.0 release. Now users can import live feeds via Geo RSS that automatically updates.

The data is initially visualised in the 3d view as a time-space cube. To interact with time one finds the tools on the left hand side vertically arranged. On the right hand side the menu provides a range of other tools including representation settings, pattern analysis, reporting tools and the new network tool.


Image by Oculus / An example using the new network tool in GeoTime visualising a computer network.

The network tool is a whole new field that has been added to GeoTime with this functionality. This is particularly interesting for the analysis of complex structure that include spatial and non spatial data, such as for example phone call data or financial transaction. In the context of the UrbanDiary project for which GeoTime is used here this new tool becomes interesting for the investigation of combinatory data from GPS and mental maps, as for the analysis of interrelationships between landmarks and actual route. For the visualisation different present network settings are available. Furthermore it integrates with the 3D visualisation of the spatial data and the network graph is directly linked to the time-space cube and highlighted areas correspond across the two visualisations. So specific sections identified for further investigation at one end can be look at from a different perspective at the other end.

For the data analysis in the spatial-temporal section, one of the new features in this 5.1 release is the stationary detector. The data can now be queried for events that have not moved in space over a longer period of time. This is useful for the data verification as well as detection of move and rest patterns.

One of the remaining points of critique is still the graphical representation of the visualisation as well as the range, simplicity and of possible manipulations of it. There have been however, some changes made and for example the colour palette has been extended. But still both the interface and the results are still very technical thought of and rendered. It would not ne a mater of just making it all fancy and colourful with rounded corners, but it would need one strong design direction as a well as an overall visual simplification.


Image by single-blogs / Applying the stationary finder to a track imported via GPX directly into GeoTime. This highlights the areas where the GPS device has not moved more than 100 metres over a period of more than 8 hours. It uses the OSM base map pulled in via the ArcGIS link.

In an comment on GeoTime 4.0, I hade described it as an end-of-the-line analysis tool. This was because the data could not be directly exported to other software packages. This has changed with this most recent update, now CSV export is supported in addition to the KML and screenshot export. The analysed file can be passed on to other software or users which dramatically enhances the usage and the integration of GeoTime.


Image by Oculus / The GeoTime 5.1 Logo.

In this sense the spaceTime aquarium has become a lot more sophisticated with this GeoTime 5.1 release. At the same time, though, it ha become accessibel for a much broader range of specialised fields through the extended palette of tools. It can now integrate in a workflow, be run as stand alone analysis software as well as operate across platforms. GeoTime is a very specialised tool and definitely offers the quickest and most comprehensive set of visualisation and analysis tools for temporal data.

For demos and further information on the GeoTime project use the inks or go HERE or HERE for earlier posts about GeoTime on single-blogs.

on Time - Aspects of Time

The Oxford Dictionary defines time as 'the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole'. With this the definition leaves open a lot of the really interesting questions, or does it include additional possibilities?
It does name a number of features such as past, present and future, as some sort of categories. Further it list progress implying change or even improvement. This is attributed two further elements continued and indefinite. The first one hinting at ongoing change and the later one ads a never ending property which is sort of in itself an timely attribute.
However to come to the questions, interesting are the aspects of linearity, the arrow of time, the multitude, singular or plural and of course the conception.
In todays everyday life, time has become so immersed and integrated it is generally regarded as something a natural as breathing (Glennie & Thrift, 2009, Shaping the Day). Usually perceived as an additional sense, a timesense?, but at least a natural fact. However, this is fiercely debated and often opposed by scholars. Nowadays aspects of time are everywhere everything is on time, timepieces rule every single step we take in the city and we surround us with timepieces (to make the clear distinction between clocks, watches and timepieces) where ever we are. Most household kitchens will nowadays spot about five different fix installed units telling the time of day, plus some gadgets telling the time temporal or are mobile. Of course there is more, navigation, communication, computers all really on hyper accurate timepieces, without which nothing would work.
This sort of clocktime (Glennie & Thrift, 2009, Shaping the Day) is however, not very old.
Since 1967, the International System of Measurements bases its unit of time, the second, on the properties of caesium atoms. SI defines the second as 9,192,631,770 cycles of that radiation which corresponds to the transition between two electron spin energy levels of the ground state of the 133Cs atom. This has developed from the discovery by Galileo that a pendulum swings regularly regardless of the distance it covers. There were however timepieces long before this, sundials and water clocks, but they were less reliable and uniformed.
Since Galileo's discover around 1600 the concept of the clock developed and gained increasing significance in everyday life particularly in social life, as an regulator of practices. This nowadays manifests in the time disciplinary enforcing institutions such as schools or workplaces, but also leisure activities and entertainment.


Image taken from Wikipedia / The Creation of Adam, ca 1511, by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564)

In terms of rituals and religious practices time has played an important role for a much longer time. This has obviously defined the cultural conception of time. The linear understanding of time can be traced in Christianity with the ideas of the Beginning, God's creation of Adam and Eve and the End as the Second Coming of Christ or the last Judgement. A one way, linear procession dominates the scenes and leaves a lasting impression in the collective memory.


Image taken from Wikipedia / The Last Judgement. The Louvre. Date not known, but the work was engraved in 1615. It was probably painted in the last decades of the Valois dynasty (1560–89), by Jean Cousin the Younger, also called Jehan Cousin Le Jeune (lived c. 1522–1595).

In other cultures and religions however the conception of time is different. Cyclical in Budhism and for example in the Egyptian culture. The Greeks used two concepts for time, a formal objective Chronos and a expressive subjective time, Kairos, as an opportunity as gap or timeout.
In the culture of the Hopi Indians, natives in the south west of the Americas, the concept of time does not cover the same three tenses present, past and future. Instead the Hopi's use only two times (Whorf), an objective time and a subjective time (the terms might be confusing but the anthropology research reaches back in time where these terms might have had slightly different coinings). Those are manifested (object) and manifesting (subject). Objective elements are all the things accessible to the sense, being physical. What we call future would be in the real of the subject, the desire or the mental. The Hopi culture also relates time to space in the sense that distance is part of the manifested as a duration. As a result simultaneity does not exist. something far away can not have the same time since the 'distance' lies in between. (Tuan 1977, p.120) Spatially very interesting here is how the two concepts meet in the distance, far away merges with the dream.


Image taken from Space and Place by Yi-Fe Tuan 1977 / Page 121, Figure 15. Hopi space time: subjective and objective realms. The objective realm is the horizontal space within the cardinal grid, but at the distant edges it merges with the subjective realm as represented by the vertical axis.

Science has occupied the debate and dominated the conception of times as linear for the best part since Galileo's pendulum. Only in the 20st century, the discussions on the topic, covered in various disciplines has taken on a different perspective. Where Newton strongly argued for an objective time, a single and true time concept, Einstein developed with the relativity theory an alternative concept, allocating time a subjective role, with time passing at different speeds for different observers. This is the development in physics, but simultaneously the conception of time was reexamined by philosophers, especially the french league with Bourdieux, Lefebvre (Rhythmanalysis), Serra, DeCerteaux and others. Here the debate between objective and subjective time continued with the phenomenologists entering the debate. However, as Elias points out in his Time: an Essay, both view in their base found on the concept that time is something given, a fixe instance, measurable. In this context the third concept of social time was developed. As Elias describes it (Elias 1992): 'To perceive time requires focusing-units (humans) capable of forming a mental picture in which event A, B and C follow one after another, are present together and yet, at the same time, are seen clearly as not having happened together; is a synthesis only humans are capable of and learned and developed over generations. Knowledge of time'.
In the current debate most philosophers would agree with a concept of time that is non linear and the concept of multiple times is accepted as a social aspect.

In exact science however, the linear singular clocktime continues to dominate everything. The discussions as well as the projects and work undertaken. This lead to the increasing exclusion of temporal aspect due to the arising problems with the integration of linear time that doesn't fit with the complex systemic concepts any longer.

This could be about to change with the recent envelopment in spatial research and the focus on mobility and location data. Aspects of temporality all of a sudden move into the prime light. This of course goes hand in hand with a shift in development and availability of specialised and capable technology.

There have, in visualisation terms, interesting approaches developed. The time geography dominated by Thorsten Hagerstrand is one example (actually this one goes beyond a mere visualisation), but also the time distance based distortion maps or animated visuals. Also the aspect of comparison between two instances is used quite often. Usually the same object is shown at two different stages to visualise the change that took place between the two points in time. Implying the Newtonian time aspects apply.

How aspects of the modern discussion on the term time apply to science in the field of geography and particularly spacial analysis is still blurred, even though we increasingly see promising approaches emerge.


Image taken from datavisualisation.ch / Ebb & Flow of Book Characters by Jeff Clark working with adapted StreamGraph code to work with arbitrary text documents.

London Twitter Cloud

Together with the tweet-O-meter project run at CASA as part of the NeISS research project we have collected location tagged tweets around London (M25). As described in an earlier post on this HERE, the idea is to capture the urban narrative. The current data covers a whole weekend from Friday evening to Monday morning and the set holds some 380'000 individual tweets. However this brakes down to 60'000 truly geo referenced tweets, by 5'500 individual users. The thing is, that these are only the mobile tweets and they are captured only if the locations sharing is activated in the twitter profile. Still this makes an average of 10.6 tweets per mobile user over the weekend. Overall we have 39'222 individual users witch makes some 9.7 tweets. So the mobile users seem to message slightly more, but not significantly as one could maybe expect.
In terms of density per location as one could expect the focus is in the centre. There are local hotspots as the weekend progresses, such as Kings Cross and Old Street. But then there seems to be a accumulation of density along the transport lines into and out of the centre.
To visualise the temporality of the data tweets are in the below clip output as a message cloud rising and hovering above London. It is a simple time-space aquarium were the time is plotted as the hight information. The later in the weekend the tweet is sent the higher above the city it floats. As the density develops the low times can be clearly spotted, when it thins out the lines and London sleeps. The animation is rendered in Google Earth, with the KML file brought in through a VB script from Excel. Once set up this is quite a flexible combination. However, the KML file can get quite big, since there is a lot of information contained with all the messages.