A conceptual framework for time-space visualisations in tracking studies: gaps and ways forward

Name, titel and affiliation
Jeroen van Schaick (j.vanschaick@tudelft.nl)
M.Urb.
Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
www.bk.tudelft.nl/users/schaick/internet

Short Biography
Jeroen van Schaick is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Architecture of Delft University of Technology. He is editor of the book ‘Urban Networks – Network Urbanism’ (2008, Techne Press) and the book ‘Urbanism on Track – Application of Tracking Technologies in Urbanism’ (2008, IOS Press). His research focuses on the application of knowledge about temporospatial activity patterns of people in the field of urban planning and design.

Abstract
A key feature of recent studies of human activity patterns that use tracking technologies such as GPS is the visualisation of temporal and spatial data. However, the choice of the type of visualisation is often primarily data-driven or technology-driven, rather than based on an idea of which images would serve which purposes, the role of imagery in applying knowledge derived from tracking studies, or of the relations between different types of visualisations.

In the context of urban geography, planning and design, the use of multiple media and a range of imagery plays an important role in the understanding of a location or region and in the communication of plans for physical or other interventions in that location or region. Often such mappings or other visual communications are framed through particular conceptual frameworks that express fundamental ideas about the relation between activity behaviour, functional organization of cities and the physical layout and transformation of cities.

This lecture connects these conceptual frameworks to the developing body of knowledge on visualisation in tracking studies and signals gaps in the current trends of data-visualisation. The lecture concludes by setting out a number of possible ways forward.