Comments on: Mapping a whole darn year

By: Andy Woodruff

Andy Woodruff — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:37:54 +0000

Thanks, Suse, glad to inspire. I haven’t considered scale much; I’ve been thinking of my (spatial) life as existing mostly at the scale shown here, but certainly it would be interesting to look at a variety of scales. In any event, I’d love to see what you end up with in Helsinki!

By: Suse

Suse — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 21:27:03 +0000

great project! I am thinking about starting a similar one. have you ever thought about different scales? or are you just interested in the large scale patterns that emerge?
I would like to try different scales and have to experiment with what to display in different scales…
really great project! I love it! And I will definitly start a similar one in Helsinki from now!

By: Matt Demers

Matt Demers — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 11:47:43 +0000

So freakin’ cool!!! Great maps, too. Saw the ‘can’t get there from here’ one in the Globe. Am obsessed with maps — new and old — of Boston. Keep ‘em coming!

By: Kyle Bunch

Kyle Bunch — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:16:14 +0000

Brilliant — lazy but painstaking is my favorite kind! But it would be great if someone would write an app using the Foursquare API to automate this process and make it distributable.

I’ll add it to my list. For a lazy but painstaking implementation, naturally.

By: Andy Woodruff

Andy Woodruff — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:47:24 +0000

Oskar: Amazing! I did indeed use the exact same method as you. I’m happy to know that there’s somebody else out there with the same foolish persistence. Love that composite map, by the way.

Kyle: Nothing even as sophisticated as a spreadsheet; I just traced over a map pasted in Illustrator, with a separate layer for each day (further separated by mode of transportation). It’s somehow at once lazy and painstaking.

By: Oskar Karlin

Oskar Karlin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:09:37 +0000

Nice! I did exactly the same thing back in the late 90s and early 00s. Also without a GPS. See my blog:

http://www.oskarlin.com/2005/10/24/never-ending-drawing-1/

By: IDOLIZE YOUR KILLERS » Blog Archive » Media

IDOLIZE YOUR KILLERS » Blog Archive » Media — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:17:03 +0000

[...] Woodruff of Cartagrammar has mapped his “whole darn year“—a map of routes he travelled in the Greater Boston Area last year. Click through to his [...]

By: Kyle Bunch

Kyle Bunch — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:53:12 +0000

This is awesome, and displays a rather admirable use of various modes of transportation.

What did you use to actually log each trip? Just a simple database/spreadsheet, or was there any sort of simple software or web-based tool you used to keep track of each location and mode of transport?

Again, great job; couldn’t agree more about the charm aspect of the manual way. Although if you did decide to use something like Google Latitude or Foursquare, I’d be intrigued to see what else you could develop.

By: Tracking Personal Movement Over The Course Of A Year - PSFK

Tracking Personal Movement Over The Course Of A Year - PSFK — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:14:32 +0000

[...] his every movement within Boston through the course of 2009. The resulting flash animation (link here) illustrates his travel through the city throughout the year, and reflects an important emerging [...]

By: Jason Morrison

Jason Morrison — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:37:44 +0000

Very cool animation! In regards to the charm of manually mapping out your trips, I used to feel the same way about geotagging photos. It was fun to go back and follow the map as I placed the photos myself.

Then I had a kid, and no longer have time for manually mapping anything Interested to see if you come up with a good GPS solution.