Eating Spaces Node Map
I’m satisfied that I know enough about coding the Morcego node map that I’ve set it up on my webserver, at http://nunovo.org.uk/eatingspaces. So, it’s live, and will get further attention as I can make time for it.
The first thing is to set out enough of the categories that loop back on each other – which is the point of a force-based diagram, and then develop some of the ancillary page displays – which is one of the main reasons to use Morcego.
Eating Spaces. What’s that about, then?
It’s a play on words, in typical po-mo hum-geo fashion. It’s a potential research project on the urban geographies of food. It’s about the spaces where food happens, including the production, distribution, consumption, cultures, discourse and practices of eating. The main focus might be on a small constellation of topics with a social emphasis, such as the development of urban spaces around the twin poles of urban food production and sustainability. This might then branch into topics of how urban spaces are and could be set aside for food production, where allotments represent one pole, and brownfield/verge sites another.
I’m using Morcego to map an outline of the project, so as to make it easier for participants to understand. Ultimately, if Morcego is powerful enough, it becomes a map and a record.
Wilma Colourwheel
More fun with edges and nodes.
This time I’ve broken into the xwg file and created the nodes from data, instead of using the GUI. Then I went into the GUI and added edges between specific groups of nodes. After that, I played with the force settings and made a movie.
Each node is based on a 3-point coordinate, like 0, 0, 0. I created 100 nodes using numbers between -1 and 1. Within WilmaScope, the node spacing and alignment are controlled by a set of sliders, and playing with these produces the various results seen here. My rendering capacity is minimal, so the detail is rubbish, but you get the idea.
In some respects, this is the end of the line for Wilma, since the extent of what I can do is make node maps. They’re useful for visualising relationships in planar mode, and could be helpful in navigating concepts in spherical mode. But what I want is an interactive web-based tool that will let me add links to nodes. In essence, a site map, except that the site would consist of any web resource.
There are 2D tools that do something like this. TrailFire, for example. But I haven’t found one with an independent visual navigation system set up. I suppose this might have to be something hand-coded in Flash.