Movement Maps

After mentioning in my last post about how I had been mapping human movement through the site, it occurred to me that none of these maps have actually been included so far in this blog. This post is therefore to show a couple of the movement maps that I have created so far to demonstrate the paths that people take through the site. The first map I created was a path map that literally mapped the paths taken by people moving through the area. One of these maps looks like this:

This helps to show the more popular paths along which people travel. The image in the bottom right corner of this image is not particularly relevant to the image, as I added it to remind me of another event that occurred. I have been adding to this image every time I go to the site when people take more interesting and individual paths that I havent yet mapped. However most people follow those already shown. Another map I did to show this in a different way is the following map:

This map shows the same information but using block colour rather than lines. I chose to draw this as the site can easily be split up into rectangular and square sections as it is a relatively square area, and so I felt this was a suitable way of displaying the flow of people through the area. However this scanned image is not as easy to read as the original image as the different colours are harder to identify. The red areas are the areas used most, the orange covers areas used slightly less than this and the green areas cover areas where people socialise rather than walk through. There are also blue coloured areas which show areas used by transport and brown areas showing areas used even less than those already listed, but these are quite difficult to identify by this image.

These two maps show similar results and so it occurred to me that I could use Photoshop to overlay the images, which would merge the two ways of mapping the data enhancing the readings of both. The result of this is shown below:

By adding the paths to the coloured blocks this helps to show the different uses of the area and enables a better understanding overall of the flow of people through the area. I feel that the flow of people through the area is probably the main focus of this study and so the next step will be to continue investigating this in different circumstances and different ways. This will then eventually be collated to help make the model for this project.

More site work

This week me and my site buddy went to our site to continue collecting a much data as possible about the area. During the hour and a half we spent there I collected a variety of different pieces of information, in terms if objects within the site, peoples movements and also the layout of the site in general. In particular I did a drawing using a technique derived from a practicle that our group had with our lecturer. This technique was to draw what I saw, but without looking so that an abstracted image of what I was seeing was produced. I decided to use this technique on the levels that I was able to observe from the centre of our site. The image I produced is below:

The majority of this drawing has been done by drawing shapes without looking, but there are also areas which I chose to draw whilst looking to create a coherent image. I based my choice of this on the importance of the section of the view and also how regimented the shapes were. For example the cobbles at the bottom of the image are all the same shape so I drew them whilst looking, unlike the stones which build the walls of each level as these are all different shapes and so I drew them individually without looking. The circular rails I also drew whilst looking as getting the circles in the right places was important to the image, whereas the outline of the the levels and the jagged stones at the top of each wall were more abstract and so I chose to draw them without looking. Anyway the end result I acheived was as above.

The blue line shown on this image is, rather strangely, the path of a pigeon as it looked for food on the floor. I chose to sketch this down as I have been mapping the paths taken by humans in the site, but have not compared this to the use of the area by other animals. Humans are very calculated about how they find a path through an area, often resorting to the easiest or quickest route through the area. However animals such as pigeons are much more erratic in their choice of path and carry a completely different agenda for their being there. I thought this may be an interesting aspect to look at as it is not only humans who use the area, and I may be able to use this comparison later on.