Britain from above: BBC's Narrative Visualization

Posted on 30. Jan, 2009 by Bradley Hebdon in Features

taxis_gps

Britain looks very different from the skies. From a bird’s eye view of the nation, its workings, cities, landscapes and peoples are revealed and re-discovered in new and extraordinary ways. Cutting edge technology allows you to see through cloud cover, navigate the landscape and witness familiar sights as never seen before.

As more and more data points become available through technological and informational advancements, a challenge lies now in knowing what’s relevant and what’s noise. And how that determination eventually translates into design. To this point, I think BBC did a great job of using visualization to tell a story, and not just as “eye-candy”.

In this visualization, satellite technology reveals how the network of city streets is being pushed to the edge of capacity. Watch the GPS traces of 380 London taxis over the course of a single day.

Watch the video >

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