We’re trying to come up with other ways of visualizing Ushahidi data. Using the Ushahidi API, Emmanuel whipped up a heatmap of the Japan deployment (http://sinsai.info/ushahidi).
You can see it live here: http://demo.ushahidi.com/japan. On the live map, you can toggle the clustered numbers on/off using the “stack” button on the right side of the map.
Japan earthquake Ushahidi data, heatmapped
We’re thinking of doing two things to make this more useful:
- Making it filterable by category.
- Creating it as a plugin so that anyone can put it on their own Ushahidi deployment.
We’d like to hear from you. Is this valuable or useful? What other visualizations do you think would make sense to do?
6 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
What exactly is a heatmap and what’s the source of your data ?
The source is the reports on the Ushahidi deployment in Japan. The heatmap shows the density of reports from a given location.
This is a map that really shows the enormous scale of the problem. It looks like 3/4 of Japan has been affected. My friends operate a business in Japan and they say they are ready to close their doors and delete their name from Japanese business directory
.
Just a suggestion: below the map (space) a timeline (time) so you can see how the dynamics of whatever you are mapping and maybe be able to predict something.
Ideally the timeline should have:
* a slider (the only required),
* a way to define a time range (2 sliders?), and
* a zoom control.
The SIMILE widget library (http://www.simile-widgets.org/) has a timeline that we could use to hack a prototype… and more to play.
Congrats for Ushahidi and everything it represents.
–
e
The ability to embed the main map on another site’s sidebar would be great. I’ve been asked by other sites/orgs for a widget or a way to display the map on my deployment on their own sites, and I’m at a loss, since I can’t provide that.
Looks like a great blog, I have it bookmarked and will be back.
This is a really interesting list! Some of them I never heard before and I will try them.