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:

1. Making it filterable by category.
2. 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?

PDF | Video | High-Res Image

Shortly after we posted the original Project 4636 info graphic, a few folks involved in the project got in touch to see if we could clarify the process. There are a lot of moving parts,  many of which are constantly changing, and so the original graphic didn’t quite reflect the exact process as well as it could have. With that in mind, we worked with Josh Nesbit of Frontline SMS Medic and Nicolás di Tada of InSTEDD to make sure the graphic reflected the process as accurately as possible. The biggest update that we made is that InSTEDD’s Nuntium SMS Gateway and the Thomson Reuters Foundation Emergency Information System are now the first entities that receive and process incoming SMS’s.  Everything else is pretty much the same.

The Updated Overview

The Updated Graphic

Click the image to view the high res version.

Thanks again to Josh, Nicolás and all the Crisis Mappers for the great feedback!

A Quick Recap of Project 4636

And here’s the full graphic:

Click the image to see the high-res version.

The thing that impresses me most about the whole project is how it all came together: lots of people working together across lots of different organizations. I really liked what Andrew Turner had to say about the level of collaboration that was going on all fronts, not just Project 4636:

Andrew Turner: "seeing things being created and incorporated in hours what would have taken months. human spirit and camaraderie multiplies capability"

For someone who’s recently come from the competitive creative agency world of non-disclosure and trade secret, it’s a breath of fresh air to see this level of collaboration between individuals across organizations, and to see that collaboration play a direct role in helping those in need.

Please note that this “big-picture” graphic is just that, a “big-picture”. It does not attempt to represent ALL the organizations and people involved with the 4636 Project. There have been lots of folks who have done great work here who we can’t even begin to name.

The past 20 hours have been sad, exhausting and inspiring. Sad for obvious reasons. Exhausting because many of us have been working straight through with no sleep. But inspiring because of the incredible community of Crisis Mappers.

Here’s what been happening in the community:

• Ushahidi launched a Haiti deployment
• Mikel Maron at OpenStreetMap launched this Wiki
• Andrew Turner at GeoCommons is updating CrisisCommons
• Our friends at Sahana have set up a Development Team
• Sahana has also set up a Wiki here
• Our InSTEDD friends set up a GeoChat instance
• Our friends at MapAction have deployed a team
• Einar Bjorgo at UNOSAT is keeping us posted on imagery

InSTEDD is also working on getting +46 numbers for GeoChat, the Emergency Information Service (EIS) and Ushahidi. InSTEDD is also in Santo Domingo deploying EIS. Sahana is exploring the possibility of integrating GeoChat based on some work they did at Camp Roberts a few months ago. InSTEDD is also looking to start testing a Sahana/Mesh4X sync. There are several dozen other ongoing efforts but hard to keep track.

http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/index.html
http://haiti.ushahidi.com/help
http://crisiscommons.org/wiki/index.php?title=Haiti/2010_Earthquake#Data

I first heard about the major earthquake around 7:30pm (Boston time) last night and immediately called David Kobia to get an Ushahidi deployment out. I have five close friends from The Fletcher School who have been in Haiti over the past two weeks and it wasn’t until midnight that I finally got word that they were alive.

What happened between 7:30pmm and midnight was inspiring. We went live with a basic deployment within half an hour. I called Chris Blow and got in touch with Brian Herbert. They both worked with David to continue the customization.

I then reached out to our colleagues with the International Network of Crisis Mappers (CM*Net), and their response has been superb. We’ve had over 50 emails back and forth, sharing data, maps, local contact info with regular updates.

Our colleagues from UN OCHA/Colombia were invaluable in helping us identify the appropriate indicators as were many others on CM*Net. OCHA had just carried out an earthquake simulation exercise using their own customized version of Ushahidi so were fully ready to go. They worked directly on the admin side to help us push forward. So many thanks to Jeffrey Villaveces and Luis Aguilar.

At around 3am, our Nairobi team took over with customization and we had an 8am all team meeting to assess the current deployment and evolving situation in Haiti. We now have an international number up for SMS and are working with our colleagues at InSTEDD and at CM*Net to set up a local number as well.

On a personal note, it’s just been remarkable to see so many of the organizations who participated in the International Conference on Crisis Mapping (ICCM) collaborate so pro-actively together. It was also somewhat surreal when someone from Haiti signed up to CM*Net and in their bio wrote:

“I’m in Baudin, Haiti right now ( 18.307606° -72.709935°) so won’t have cell phone service until it comes back but can be reached then at 509-3-823-6859 or michael.ritter2@gmail.com.”

I quickly added Michael to the CrisisMappers Google Group and he has been providing is some valuable information since.

Reports

Note, we’re getting a fair number of Twitter messages, but not all of them are useful reports at this time. Mobile networks are down, so the SMS reports are almost nothing. Web-based reports that are coming in seem to be of good quality, as are the few email reports we’re getting.

Special Thanks

We’re getting slammed by a bunch of traffic on the site. A big thanks goes out to Jonathan and his team at Cartika Hosting who have helped us stay up all along, have migrated servers for us and spent hours on the phone. Thanks guys!

Organizations helping to get the word out about the Haiti site:

Wall Street Journal
Google Relief
Clinton Foundation
UNDP
Cartika forums
Washington Post
Global Voices
ReliefWeb
The Guardian
New York Times Lede blog

When we first launched Ushahidi in 2008, we didn’t have the resources to go beyond the static visualization of crowdsourced data. In 2009, we added our first dynamic visualization feature, which allows users to animate or “play” their data over time and space, thus creating “movie maps” of crisis data. This is just the first step. We want Ushahidi to become one of the most innovative open-source platforms around for data visualization. And like most good movies, “special effects” can make all the difference.

So here’s a teaser on just three of several new visualization features you can expect to see on Ushahidi in early 2010. We’ve called these features “Raindrops”, “Footprints” and “Sonar”.

• Raindrops: Crisis dots are animated over time and space but the dots do not disappear after they have been mapped. Think of the dots as raindrops that form a puddle. This puddle reveals potentially important information: a significant collection of raindrops concentrated in one specific area. This enables the user to identify concentrations of discrete crisis events dynamically.

• Footprints: Like Raindrops but crisis dots fade out after a certain time, say 3 seconds, as determined by the user. Think of footprints in the sand, these patterns are visible for a while but then fade with time. This visualization may reveal the “direction” or locus of crisis. This enables the user to visualize potential links between most recent crisis events.

• Sonar: Crisis dots each emit a “beep” sound when they are mapped. This feature leverages sound to augment the user’s visualization experience. Some patterns may be more discernible by visualizing and hearing crisis data over time and space.

Some of the visualizations we’re currently working on were proposed by several colleagues of ours, such as Sophia Lu at Colorado University and Jen Ziemke at John Carroll University. So if you have any innovative ideas, then by all means get in touch at any time, we’d love to hear from you. We also look forward to collaborating with current and future partners in 2010 to ensure that the Ushahidi platform provides innovative visualization features that enable them to make the very most of the data they crowdsource.