Sydney or Melbourne?
Sydney-siders and Melbournians: Can you tell from the two images below which is your favourite city?
Both Base maps © OpenStreetMap, CC-BY_SA
These spider-web-like map images of Sydney (bottom) and Melbourne (top), have been created using geo-tagged flickr images, so instead of the arteries and veins representing roads they represent sight-seeing missions, with the most photogenic locations acting as the darkest marked hubs. If you look closely you'll see that the images aren't totally black and white: the colours of the lines are dictated by modes of transport – black is for walking, red is for cycling and blue is for motorised transport. Though I think in the case of Sydney the red lines on the harbour are from the ferries. Creates a different picture of your home town doesn't it.
Eric Fisher is the artist(?) or visionary(?) responsible for them. He got the photo locations from the flickr and Picasa search apis, by searching for images taken within 10 minutes of each other, which explains both the linear nature of the design and how he could work out how the photographers were travelling. He then laid his vein maps over an OpenStreetMap map. He used a perl script - which is what the Nestoria developers use - to plot the clusters.Sounds technical but the effect couldn't look much more magical.Bonus points on top of the buzz you're getting for recognising your own city if you recognise the one below.
Base maps © OpenStreetMap, CC-BY_SA
Here's the full suite of images.
