Comments on: Sorry, Alaska and Hawaii. Build more roads.

Sorry, Alaska and Hawaii. Build more roads.

desjardins — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:50:17 -0800

Two visualization projects: All of the streets in the lower 48 United States: an image of 26 million individual road segments. No other features (such as outlines or geographic features) have been added to this image. And zipdecode, a unique map of US zipcodes.

By: Mach5

Mach5 — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:56:02 -0800

I wonder how much heat that amount of black pavement sucks up compared to fields and trees (and yes, i know some of it is concrete). What kind of environmental effects would the result of that have? At any rate, that's a sweet visualization.

By: Plutor

Plutor — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:58:28 -0800

It's a half-double! Does that make it a single?

By: Nelson

Nelson — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:00:52 -0800

Ben Fry is the man. You can read more detail about All Streets. Built in Proce55ing, naturally.

By: quin

quin — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:17:41 -0800

I live here. See it? That one road on the left hand side? No, you're looking too low. Up higher. Yep, that one.

By: Science!

Science! — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:31:34 -0800

This is so cool. I'd love to be able to zoom in on the street view one.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:38:37 -0800

Are there two upper states? I mean, I know Alaska is "up", but I'm pretty sure Hawaii is "down". 48 lower, 1 upper, 1 lateral?

By: Flunkie

Flunkie — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:41:04 -0800

At this scale, a four lane highway is about 1/350th of a pixel, give or take.

By: desjardins

desjardins — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:47:31 -0800

Mach5 - you might want to read up on urban heat islands.

By: rooftop secrets

rooftop secrets — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:48:25 -0800

48 lower, 1 upper, 1 lateral? Hawaii is most definitely the southernmost state.

By: madajb

madajb — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:52:07 -0800

Where's the high-res version? I must have this framed on my wall.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:48:19 -0800

48 lower, 1 upper, 1 lateral? Alaska is the farthest North, West and East.

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:06:48 -0800

Very cool.

By: rhapsodie

rhapsodie — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:13:42 -0800

Why does America hate Alaska?

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:30:57 -0800

Is there an interactive feature that I'm missing?

By: smackfu

smackfu — Fri, 02 May 2008 23:17:31 -0800

Not sure I understand what's going on here. The areas in the Northeast that are dense with streets look the same color as the ones that are pretty rural. Like CT is not a homogenous state. I think maybe that the West is so sparse that it throws off the scale entirely. Like he turned the contrast knob until he got a pretty picture.

By: sexyrobot

sexyrobot — Sat, 03 May 2008 01:22:39 -0800

hawaii is actually further north than even alaska...why is it so warm and tropical? volcanoes.

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Sat, 03 May 2008 01:55:55 -0800

"Like he turned the contrast knob until he got a pretty picture." Heh. You said 'knob' hehehehe. Actually, back when I used to watch TV on a ..y'know.. TV... That's what I'd do. Turn up the contrast until the picture looked pretty. What's wrong wit dat? My very old TV with the poor contrast is currently off by the way. I prefer watching television on my computer.

By: Forktine

Forktine — Sat, 03 May 2008 06:41:35 -0800

Where's the high-res version? I must have this framed on my wall. Here is someone selling it as a poster, ready for your wall.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Sat, 03 May 2008 07:50:23 -0800

Nice find, Forktine, but that's a different map. Same idea though. It comes from the Pacific Biodiversity Institute. Unfortunately the linked DjVu of that map is only 50dpi, 2209x1711, so you can't see all the detail. I was wondering where the zoomable version of Ben's map was, too. Then I realized we have one; Google Maps. I think what's interesting about the All Streets visualization is the subtle shading of the published images that suggest way higher resolution than the image file actually has. That shading is a hallmark of a lot of Processing visualizations and I always wonder how they do it. I don't think it's simple anti-aliasing or image reduction, the image looks too crisp for that.

By: quanta and qualia

quanta and qualia — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:27:06 -0800

I am being laughed at for playing with the zipcode map. I just think it's awesome enumerating locations on the map (with/out zoom) one digit at time. ****

By: empyrean

empyrean — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:56:09 -0800

Yeah... the scale is way off on the roads, which makes this misleading, but it's interesting anyway.

By: eponymouse

eponymouse — Sat, 03 May 2008 14:46:47 -0800

Tasty! Thanks. The zipcode map is particularly amusing as I don't understand US zipcodes for the life of me; I plonk in numbers and lights appear. I'd like to say I'm learning, but I'm not sure.

By: Pronoiac

Pronoiac — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:43:25 -0800

Nelson: I think what's interesting about the All Streets visualization is the subtle shading of the published images that suggest way higher resolution than the image file actually has. That shading is a hallmark of a lot of Processing visualizations and I always wonder how they do it. I don't think it's simple anti-aliasing or image reduction, the image looks too crisp for that. I'm not sure what it's called - blending? - but I've seen it demonstrated in Viewpoints (example), where it would be a solid, detailless color without the, um, scaling palette mentioned.