Module 2 Formstorming

Weekly Activity Template

Millicent Dayaram

Module 2 is about strategic mapping using Mapbox and bivariate data sets. Each module, we explore this process to create the final product.

Project 2

Module 2

Initial exploration with Mapbox and all it's features.

Week 6

Exploring the road and transit networks through North America. I learned that a trunk road is a major highway managed at the national level and often connects important locations. A motorway is a specific type of trunk road for high speed traffic with controlled access and no intersections. Exploring the Niagara Region where I live. Here I continued exploration of roads and included labels. I also based the colours off of a picture of Niagara Falls to stay within the Niagara theme. For this map, I went to Cuenca, Ecuador - a city nestled in the Andes which I travelled to. In this map, I explore streets, hill shading to bring out the depth of the geography and changed the fonts and colours of the labels. The colour scheme for this map was taken from a photo of Cuenca. For this map, I used 'Satellite' as my basemap instead of basic. I used the same location as a comparison between the two basemaps. This is a map of Jasper National Park. I chose this area because I visited it for the first time this year and wanted to explore the bathymetry function. In this photo, the different heights of the mountains are outlined with rings like tree rings. Some of the rings have numbers by them indicating their height in meters. The colour scheme for this map was taken from a photo of Jasper. I wanted to combine the use of bathymetry with trails. I chose Short Hills Provincial Park which I've been to many times. In this photo, you can see the rings of the hills with numbers by them showing their height. You can also see the trails in the park denoted by long dash lines. The black lines represent roads. In this map, I chose a satellite view of Niagara and put it to land use. In this photos you can see that most of Niagara is mostly greenspace made up of farmland and uncultivated land. In this photo of Toronto, I wanted to investigate the amount of greenspace as a contrast to Niagara. The red space is highlighted in red. As you zoom into the map, more red space appears. Zooming out this far shows where the biggest parks are. Purple, red, and turquoise were chosen for the contrast. In this map I wanted to add a layer. For this layer, I wanted to show how much of the land was in use using a green highlight. In this map of the globe, I wanted to use the bathymetry tool to show depth of the ocean. In this map of Las Vegas, I wanted to play with viewing the map from a 3D angle. As Mapbox includes weather effects, I wanted to add rain to the scene. This is another view of Las Vegas but with satellite layer added. Below the 3D building of the Las Vegas sphere, you can see the base on the satellite map. Here, I wanted to explore more with labels and hiding other pieces of information that could be distracting. This map shows two of the subway lines in Toronto. Here is another 3D view of the Toronto skyline. In this map, I turned on the ability to see POI locations and turned off all other information like road signs to make the buildings stand out. I was able to change the colour of trunk roads and regular raods to pink and purple. Exploring 3D map version in a less densely populated area. The image is more bland and doesn't appear as exciting as a big city/well-known place. This is a map of Southern Ontario. In this map, I started playing with the visuals. I edited the horizon line, sky and stars. In this map, I played around with more of the visuals. I added a halo around the map and added pink snow. Mapbox gives options for how dense the snow is and what direction it's blowing. You can also change the opacity and density of the vignette. This is another photo of Toronto Island. I wanted to explore more iterations of the sky in the daytime. In this map of Toronto, I'm exploring the layers aspect. I'm exploring transit stops again. The dark circles represent all transit stops in Toronto and the green circles represent most popular transit stops. In this map of Toronto, I explore how to visualize waterways in Layers. I also wanted to viusalize it using something other than lines. In this map of Hamilton and GTA, I'm using two layers: the green represents aeroways and the squiggly lines represent waterways. Here I should have made the squiggly lines a different colour to differentiate from the roads. Exploring the 'Structures' layer with blue fill in this map of downtown Toronto. I'm again exploring two layers in this map of downtown Toronto: the green space represents land use and the grey dots represent structures. The more I zoomed in, the more green everything became. It was interesting that only popular locations remained green as I zoomed out. Again use two layers to show road and structures in downtown Toronto. It was interesting to me that Mapbox included either the pedestrian tunnel or the ferry's route to Billy Bishop terminal as a road. In this map of downtown Toronto, I used three labels: the red dots represent transit stops (subway and train), the blue dots represent places, and the blue dotted lines represent water.

Week 7

We were first introduced to laser printing in class. We were given an Adobe Illustrator template and a tutorial to follow along with. This is an image of the laser printing process. This is an image of my design. To make sure the machine filled in the image, I chose a 'Black' colour fill with no outline. I also changed the font to be in the style that matched the illustration. This is a screenshot of my projection mapping process. I followed the tutorials and was keystoning the sides of the building. This is a screenshot of adding the 'shatter' effect to create the illlusion of breaking a wall to reveal another message. This is a screenshot of the 'shatter' effect in process. A screnshot from Mapbox of the city of Oakville showing bike lanes. THe yellow lines are exisitng bike lanes, and the red lines are proposed bike lanes. The thin lines represent 'On-road' and the thick lines represent 'Off-Road'. I was interested in this dataset because I wanted to know what the city's infrastructure was, both existing and planned, for cyclers, especially as this has become a more popular option for commuting. This screenshot is a map of the Niagara Region. The lines represent main bike paths in the Region. Thin lines mean 'On-road' and thick lines mean 'Off-road'. The surfaces colour coded: 1) Yellow: stone/dirt, 2) Light orange: stone dust/paved, 3) Orange: paved, 4) Dark orange: gravel - not graded, 5) Pink: Dirt, 6) Magenta: stone dust/gravel, 7) Purple: unpaved. Because Niagara has a lot of green space and tourist attractions, I was wondering where the locations of the main bike paths were and how this affects accesibility within the city and points of interest. This is a screenshot of the locations of some Niagara wineries. I wanted to experiment with the different features Mapbox offers with data visualization. Here, I colour-coded the locations of the wineries based on municipality. I also added labels so the viewer could recognize quickly what they were looking at. I was also eperimenting with the colour palette of the map. I think this map is too colourful and can distract the user from the information. This screenshot is combining Niagara wineries with bike paths. As many people enjoy bike and wine tours, I was curious to see where the routes were and just how many wineries are placed around these paths. I also used a darker map for better visualization of the data. Unfortunately, it's difficult to capture all the data points in a screenshot, as the more you zoom out, the more data disappears from the page. Not all the wineries in the dataset may be seen here. Because of all the information, I removed the roads to reduce distractions. This screenshot is a visualization of some of the shelter locations in Niagara and foodbanks. The shelter locations are circles and colour coded. The foodbanks are denoted by shapes and labelled with their location. I took away the roads to reduced distraction. This is a photo of primary and secondary schools that do and do not have food programs in Niagara.The purple circles represent schools that have food programs and orange circles represent schools that do not. This screenshot displays some of Niagara's Historical sites and bike trails. The historical sites 'ownership' are visualized by colour: 1) Blue: Niagara Parks Commission, 2) Federal, 3) Other, 4) Provincial. This screenshot shows some of Niagara's homeless shelters and foodbank locations. The shelters are circles and colour coded depending on what municipality they are in: 1) Yellow: St. Catharines, 2) Red: Niagara Falls, 3) Purple: Fort Erie. The foodbanks are denoted using a heat map. I hadn't used this feature before and wanted to try it. I think it got the message across that I needed, but I think circles or symbols would have been better. Unfortunately, I cannot use the same data visualization tool twice in the same map. I found a Canada wide dataset looking at overdose injection sites across the country. The circles show where the injection sites are and the colours represent the number of non fatal overdoses. Unfortunately, there was not a category for amount of time so I wasn't sure how recent this was but I still found it interesting. Colour Legend: 1) Black: no overdoses, 2) Pink: 25 overdoses, 3) Magenta: 512 overdoses, 4) Lilac: 999 overdoses, 5) Purple: 1974 overdoses, 6) Indigo: 2948 overdoses, 7) Blue: 3923. Looking back on this map, I should have used different colours for these numbers instead of colours that look very similar to each other. I could have made the circles bigger but the custer of circles in Southern Ontario would be more difficult to visualize if I did that. I wanted to explore other databases in Southern Ontario. This is a screenshot of Burlington. The heat map represents trees owned and maintained by the city. The lines represent main waterways. Each one is colour coded based on it's name. ecause there were so many trees, I felt the heatmap could show the density better and provided a more interesting contrast with the grey background. This is a map of Toronto. I was able to find a dataset about Toronto crime rates broken down by neighbourhood and year. With this dataset, I was able to make a Chloropleth. Each colour shows the number of assaults in Toronto in 2024: Blue: 25, Purple: 131, Green: 237, Pink: 342, Orange: 448, Red: 660, Yellow: 971. The circles represent health centres in each city: Blue: Scarborough, Green: Former Toronto, Pink: York, Orange: North York, Red: Etobicoke, Yellow: East York. There was a lot of information in the Toronto crime dataset and I wanted to continue exploring it. This is a map of the number of 'Break & Enter' and Assaults in 2024. The colours represent the number of 'Break and Enters' and the raised 3D extrusions represent the number of assaults, with the extrusion being higher if there were more assaults in that area. I found the monochrom palette was a better way to viusalize the information. In this map of Toronto, I have continue visualizing crime data. The extrusions and colours show the number of assaults in 2024, with the darker colours and taller extrusions denoting more assaults and the lighter colours and shorter extrusions denoting less assaults. The colours represent shooting and firearm discharges by any individual. The dataset included information from the past 10 years. I was interested in comparing how many times firearms had been discharged. The blue circles represent '2024' and the yellow circles represent '2014'. In this map, I have visualized a dataset showing affordable rental homes in Toronto. The different colours represent the stages in development with the light colours representing pre-planning and darker colours represent occupied. This is another map of Toronto showing a chloropleth map of bike theft in 2024. The blue circles represent bicycle parking stations. The blue circles represent bike stations that are active and red circles represent bike stations that are inactive. The blue places on the chloropleth represent low numbers of bike theft, and the red represents high numbers of bike theft. This map shows a list of establishments offering services such as hairstyling, barbering, tattooing, ear and body piercing, manicures, pedicures, and aesthetics. The colours of the circles represent each service: 1) Red: injectable personal services, 2) Blue: aesthetics, 3) White: nails, 4) Dark blue: Body piercing, and 5) Mauve: Injectable Personal Services. The size of the circle represents if it as passed health and safety inspection: Smallest circle: Pass, Medium circle: Conditional pass, 3: Largest circle: Closed. I was interested in finding more health-related datasets but had a difficult time finding any online. For this map, I was interested in investigating Break and Enters in 2024 and locations of affordable housing. In the chloropleth map, blue represents low number of B&E's, red represents high number of B&E's, and white represents the average between them. The dots represent locations of affordabel housing with yellow representing pre-planned places, red representing places in the process, and purple representing places that are occupied. As people who live in affordable housing can be more vulnerable, I was curious to see if there were correlations between the two. This is a map of Toronto traffic and locations of red light cameras. The traffic has been measured within the last 5 years between 2014-2019. The lighter, thinner lines represent low traffic areas and the darker, thicker lines represent places of high traffic. The circles represent where the red light cameras are and the colours represent which district they are located in. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a dataset about the amount of speeding tickets in this area, but that would have been very interesting to apply to this map. This is a map of Toronto's public washrooms and how accessible they are. The size of the circle represents if the staus: smallest circle) No problems (open), small circle: under construction, medium circle: technical issues, largest circle: closed for the season. The colours represent the how accessible the bathroom is: Dark red: No accessibility, Burnt Orange: automatic door opener, Orange: entrance at grade, Light Orange: Accesible stall, Peach: Entrance accdess ramp, Cream: combination of all of these. Unfortunately, it appears there are some very inaccesible bathrooms in Toronto. This is a screenshot of dog parks in Toronto. The small circles represent parks with full enclosures and the big circles represent places with no enclosures. Blue represents no nearby drinking sources and yellow represents a drinking source nearby.

Spatial Workshop 1

Our group found a lot of areas for improvement in this area. The ramp is only on one side of the stairs so a person would potentially need to go all the way around to to access them which can be very inconvenient. The signage could also be improved. There could be colour-coded tiles on the floor or paint along the walls or symbols acting as a guide while the person is walking through the area. We also thought an interactive digital kiosk would be helfpul. Users can type where they want to go and could then receive visual step-by-step instructions. For our last improvement, we thought the display cases could showcase the students' work in a way that makes it stand out more and will cause people to stop and look at it. They could also post a digital monitor that has a slideshow of students' art. <a href='https://www.youtube.com/embed/tgbNymZ7vqY' target='_blank'><p>Project Video Link</p></a> This space always appears empty. I've never seen anyone sitting here. I think it's because it looks uninviting. I think they should add more greenery to provide shade and a calming environment. It would also be so nice to have a fireplace, but I don't think that will ever happen.<div class='container'><iframe class='responsive-iframe' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/tgbNymZ7vqY'></iframe></div> We thought the Food Court could be more inviting and cozy. They could add fireplaces in the walls which would also be inline with the 'chalet' feel of the area. Adding greenery, real or fake, would also be nice. For functionality, they should add a ramp from the lower level to outside for accessibility. Perhaps they could also change the elevator so that it's easier to use, I don't think I've ever seen anyone use it.

Spatial Workshop 2

Our first concept was done in Photoshop. We changed the sign to a digital sign and colour coded the letters. We then added colour-coded tile/tape to correspond with the locations on the sign. <a href='https://www.youtube.com/embed/tgbNymZ7vqY' target='_blank'><p>Project Video Link</p></a> This is a drawing of the hallway with colour coded paint on the signs. The sign is still digital. The interactive kiosk is in the middle so that people notice it. We also removed the stairs on the left and added a ramp. We then removed the railings on the front and created a full staircase for easier access.<div class='container'><iframe class='responsive-iframe' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/tgbNymZ7vqY'></iframe></div> This last drawing we kept the ramp. We also incuded interactive lighting to guide people to their direction, but also create a fun and engaging experience - something for people to enjoy and look forward to as they walk down this long hall.

Project 2

Final Project 2 Design

Map of Toronto showing auto thefts. The higher the extrusions and darker the colour mean more auto thefts, while lower extrusions and light colour means less auto thefts. Coloured circles represent where thefts occurred. As the viewer zooms in, the extrusions get taller representing how auto thefts have changed from 2014-2024. When the viewer zooms out, extrusions return to auto theft rates from 2014.

Legend for Toronto Auto Theft Map
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