Geographic

Representation

& Speculation

Three exercises and two final projects exploring how data visualization and spatial mapping can reveal hidden patterns — in marine ecosystems, urban sound, and the global consequences of armed conflict.

Course

SCI 6322 Mapping · Spring 2018

Advisor

Robert Pietrusko

Team

Boxiang Yu · Yinan Liu · Shuo Zhao

Year

05 / 2018

00
Documentation

Full documentation · Vimeo · 4:19

A
Human Impacts on Coral Reefs

Human Impacts
on Coral Reefs

Ocean covers over 70% of our planet. By overlapping human activities with marine life distribution, we quantify how shipping, pollution, rising temperatures, acidification, and sea level rise affect ocean ecosystems.

Coordinate system: Goode Homolosine (Ocean) — chosen to prioritize accurate representation of marine life distribution.

Coral reefs data visualization
Marine life distribution mapping
B
Daily Behaviors with Urban Spaces
GPS-based daily behavior tracking

Daily Behaviors
with Urban Spaces

This exercise establishes the relationship between daily behaviors and urban spaces, classifying spaces by category and magnitude based on behavioral data.

We identified behavior trajectories and key spatial nodes, then recorded behaviors divided into personal, social, mental, and bodily attributes.

By synthesizing behavior data against space characteristics — temperature, noise, humidity, density — we draw conclusions about the relationship between human activity and urban form.

Urban behavior spatial analysisUrban behavior mapping
01
VOXSCAPE

VOXSCAPE

Imagine a world built out of ambiance noises: the ground surface is shaped by general audio topography; building heights are generated by street unpitched sound volume; the clouds above are clusters formed by voice frequency.

This project studies vocality inside the cityscape and how it relates to materiality and spatial organization — regarding vocal patterns as a potential natural order to structure the urbanscape.

Transparent Plexi (sky) · 3D Printed Powder (terrain)

VOXSCAPE components and assembly diagram
VOXSCAPE physical modelVOXSCAPE model interiorVOXSCAPE model presentation

Physical model — transparent plexi sky layer · 3D printed powder terrain

VOXSPACE vocality across 24 hours

Vocality Over 24 Hours

The visualization shows vocality across different time periods of a day. Pink reflects the highest sound volume; cyan is relatively low.

By projecting these colors onto the physical model, the combination of color, material, and shape forms the complete "VOXSPACE" of the city.

VOXSCAPE detail 9VOXSCAPE detail 10VOXSCAPE detail 11VOXSCAPE detail 12
02
This War of Mine

This War
of Mine

Starting from war worldwide, we track the flow of refugees and poverty situations, ending at the black market — to demonstrate that violence can only ever bring more violence.

In the 21st century, 32 active conflict zones span the globe. Innocent civilians remain the greatest victims — their displacement and exposure to black markets quantified across decades of armed conflict data.

"There never was a good war, or a bad peace."

— Benjamin Franklin
Armed conflict and black market flow diagram
Conflict zone 14Conflict zone 15Conflict zone 16Conflict zone 17
World armed conflict data visualization