This is my new city feed pipe diagram which describes the method for accumulating the dataset from a range of twenty existing Web resources. The current design fetches, regularises and truncates before filtering and sorting. The output is based on a 365 day time period. Theoretically, this would power the City Dynamics visualisation above.

I have decided to park the film in its current state as I feel it would be better to add information and review as my Thesis develops… I have cut it down and worked up a couple of scenes but still feel there is some way to go. I am happy with the overall sequence, just not with the level of enhancement.

Thanks must go to Ollie O’Brien for his visualisation of the OpenStreetMap Milton Keynes Mapping Party in May last year as well as A Year of Edits by ITO World. Both are licensed under the CC-BY-SA attribution.

This the film I presented at the Crit. It is certainly a work in progress… Frustratingly, I seemed to spend such a large amount of time learning as opposed to creating but I will continue to work on it as I am confident it will eventually come together.

This is the final test, an animated transition between the digital and the physical footage. The first frame of each sequence is geospatially referenced as a perspective within Google Earth to provide a near seamless transition.

I finally worked out how to render a 3D object (the good old teapot) in a scene using motion tracking. This test footage is a bit jittery in places but you get the idea. The next step would be to animate the content and achieve improved lighting/shadowing with the matte shadow composite.

This is an example of the footage that will be shown as part of the route. It will be synchronised along with the other aspects of the sequence, elements of which will accumulate over time.

It was achieved recording a path animation in Google Earth with the recently generated 3D building layer. I have further enhanced the footage using a tilt-shift lens effect to play with the sense of scale.

Another test sequence this time overlaying, rather than augmenting. The clip shows Pathe newsreel footage of a WWI memorial service circa 1932. The aim is to explore the notion of a digital sense of place – an enhancement of reality – where previously inaccessible or unknown audio/visual artefacts could be experienced in real-time to provoke new meaning.

Conceived back in the late sixties, Centreplan 70 was the name of a master-plan to redevelop Cardiff’s city centre. Thankfully it was never realised, due in part to the 1970s property recession.

This film is my cut on the original, which was made in promotion of the scheme. Unfortunately, the sound has been lost but one could imagine a suitably optimistic voice-over speculating on future benefit.

Instead I have used this re-work to symbolise and enhance, in retrospect, the potential short-comings of such a vision. It seeks to portray the Architect as the egotistical overlord, the antithesis of which is the crux of my primer project and subsequent thesis.

I have also introduced a soundtrack: String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima) by Philip Glass.

This animation was rendered in Google Earth and sources all raw GPS trace data from the OpenStreetMap database to date. The frequency of tracking is relatively low compared to other major cities but it would be interesting, not only to witness the aggregation and pattern of concentration over time, but also whether or not the resulting point ‘cloud’ data could be used to define any spatial geometry.

This is my second pilot which involved motion-tracking the base footage using Mocha and then rendering an image or animation on top with After Effects. It may not look like much but it took a long time to fathom. There are a couple of missed frames in places but on the whole it is pretty clean. Inspiration came from the MapType film, where a similar technique has been used to augment snippets of information, dynamically, within the city.

A bit of an experiment with my conventional camera while I wait for the fish-eye lens to arrive. The overlay, which would most likely be shown in parallel, is an extraction from the raw GPS trace data of Cardiff’s OpenStreetMap. The eventual goal would be to animate the actual video path. The little blips are to signify the accumulation of POI markers within the digital layer.

The principle aim of this primer is to demonstrate the next generation of crowd-sourced mapping and its potential not only to redefine our image of the city, but to form the basis for a new, open source, architecture and urbanism.

The secondary aim is to depict the relationship between the physical and the virtual and hint at a meeting of the two by way of augmented reality.

Beyond a purely cartographic categorisation of urban space, the recording process will not only encompass the tectonic, but the ephemeral. It will not be an exhaustive process, but a demonstration and subsequent representation, of a typical journey within the city.

Process

The mapping will involve the recording and logging of a range of information, split into two parts: the physical and the digital. The common factor will be time as I intend to produce two films, one for each, to be shown in sync.

The Physical

A real-time video sequence will be the focus. I intend to play upon the idea of an individual inhabiting the city by proposing to film the journey from the third person where the individual appears as an ‘agent’ in the urban environment. I have ordered a suitable lens but this will need careful testing as it may prove to be unsuccessful. In the event, I would instead obtain footage from a camera to imitate the perspective of the human eye. In addition I would record sound throughout the journey and make notes on ephemeral events relating to emotion and smell.

The Digital

The journey will be logged via GPS to record the route spatially. Video stills and sound will be geo-tagged within the sequence as captured ‘bytes’. The digital representation is most likely to consist of layers, mapped using KML, within Google Earth. There is an open source version of google earth relating to OpenStreetMap but unfortunately it is not particularly accessible.[1]

Methodology

I will need to conduct a number of pilots to ensure the combined success of the various elements. I have successfully logged a number tracks using the iPhone as a GPS receiver. Whilst it is not the most accurate device, I am keen to use it as an example in order to demonstrate the potential for scaleability. I have ordered a suitable wide-angle for the video footage but intend to begin recording as soon as possible.

The tricky part is the successful sequencing and synchronisation of the digital aspects to the physical footage. I am currently exploring this in greater detail.

Deliverables

A parallel film sequence with audio.