Abstract:
It is nowdays possible to track your own everyday movements through GPS technologies. This can be used to improve the efficiency of your transportation, saving you precious time. It is possible to compare several means of transport and perhaps, choose the ones that are healthier such as walking, bicycles, skate board, roller skaters, etc. This mean it is possible to turn your transportation into your own everyday gym, saving you even more time!
Preparation
Tracking App used: My Tracks, Android. This App tracks your movement and saves it as a KMZ file, which we turned to XML file to use it in Grasshopper.
Self-Stalking:
For this assignment, we decided to track our movement form our apartment to IAAC using three means of transportation: walking, long board and bicycle. The tracking was done between the corner of Napols and Pujades, to IAAC entrance in Pujades 102, Barcelona-Spain.
The distance between the apartment and IAAC is about 1km.
Image from Google Maps Direction: A- Carrer de Nàpols, 9-11, Barcelona
B- Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Carrer de Pujades, Barcelona
Visualize:
The collected data was used to compare the differences in speed and time, using the chosen means of transport: walking, long board and bicycle. Each tracking XML file, for each mean of transport, was setup in Grasshopper as a line of points that indicated the specific coordinates of position, along with the detailed moment of measure. The intervals of the tracking points were determined by the App itself. They were in approximately regular periods, so the distance between each point determined the speed of our movement: when the point were closer, we were traveling slower; when the points were more separated, we were traveling faster.
Equal circles were drawn in each point. They were then extruded in a height proportional to the distance traveled from the previous point and according to the overall speed of the trip, as taken from the total time. So: the higher the extrusion, the faster the ride.
WALKING
Traveling from A to B by walking. 1 km = 18 minutes
LONG BOARD
Traveling from A to B by long board. 1 km = 9 minutes
BICYCLE
Traveling from A to B by bicycle. 1 km = 6 minutes
COMPARISON
Comparison between traveling from A to B by walking, Long board and bicycle.
Other References
The map of reference was done using Open Street Maps data. http://www.openstreetmap.com/
“Human” (formerly “HDT utilities”) plug-in was used to adjust the line weight of the map drawing.