the visualization of spatial structure...the visualization of spatial social structure thesis...

The Visualization of Spatial Social Structure

Thesis submitted for thedegree of Doctor of Philosophy to

the University of Newcastle upon Tyne,September 1991.

by

Daniel F. L. Dorling

i

Benjamin D HennigText BoxDorling, D. (1991) PhD Thesis: The Visualization of Spatial Social Structure, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.Scans of the prints referred to can be found here:http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/thesis/prints.html

Abstract

A great deal of information about the social geography of Britain iscontained within databases such as the census. To comprehend thisinformation it needs to be effectively visualized. Conventional mapscontain an unwanted distortion however, and have been rejected by manyas an unsuitable means of showing spatial social structure. A more humancartography is developed here to show the events of people's lives and theshape of society. This thesis argues that a truer picture is obtained by beingable to see the whole, in as much detail as possible, at a glance.

A total of 179 high resolution prints show original techniques to studymany aspects of life in Britain today. They include pictures of thedistribution of age, sex, birthplace and occupation in 1981, changes inthese from 1971, unemployment and house price dynamics throughout the1980s, general election results from 1955 to 1987 (followed by all localelection voting from 1987 to 1990), migration flows from one part of thecountry to another and daily commuting streams. These are of interest forthe various methods of visualization used, their content, and the extremelyhigh levels of detail achieved. Over ten thousand places are shown in mostof the images produced.

Much of the work involved the creation of computer generated cartogramswhere each areal unit (up to one hundred thousand to a page) is drawn inproportion to the number of people who live there. Colour and complexsymbols are used to study several factors simultaneously and visuallyeffective means of showing millions of flows and other changes over timeare developed. A case study of the distribution of childhood leukaemia inspace and time is also undertaken. Tables give the detailed results of thelast ten general elections (with a basis for dealing with constituencyboundary changes). The algorithm to create a detailed cartogram ispresented and an index is included.

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To Benjamin Dorling

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ContentsAbstract iiDedication iiiContents ivList of Figures viList of Prints viiPreface xAcknowledgments xiii

Introduction: Human Cartography 1

Chapter 1: Envisioning Information 111.1 Visual Thinking 111.2 Pictures Over Time 141.3 Beyond Illustration 171.4 Texture and Colour 191.5 Perspective and Detail 221.6 Pattern and Illusion 241.7 From Mind to Mind 26

Chapter 2: People, Spaces and Places 302.1 Which People 302.2 Why Study Places? 322.3 What Are Spaces? 352.4 Drawing Lines 372.5 Picturing Points 412.6 Population Space 442.7 Adding Time 46

Chapter 3: Artificial Reality 483.1 Imagining Reality 483.2 Abstract Spaces 503.3 Area Cartograms 543.4 The Nature of Space 573.5 Producing Illusions 603.6 Population Space 623.7 Stretching Spacetime 63

Chapter 4: Honeycomb Structure 684.1 Viewing Society 684.2 Who the People Are 704.3 Disparate Origins 734.4 Lost Opportunities 764.5 Work, Industry and Home 784.6 How People Vote 814.7 The Social Landscape 84

Chapter 5: Transforming the Mosaic 875.1 Still Images of Change 875.2 Forming the Structure 885.3 Structure Transformed 915.4 Variable Employment 95

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5.5 House Price Inflation 975.6 Reshaping Votes 985.7 Erosion and Deposition 101

Chapter 6: Cobweb of Flows 1046.1 What Flow Is 1046.2 What Flows There Are 1066.3 Unravelling the Tangles 1086.4 Drawing the Vortices 1106.5 Commuting Chaos 1146.6 Migration Networks 1156.7 A Space of Flows 118

Chapter 7: On the Surface 1227.1 2D Vision, 3D World 1227.2 Surface Definition 1247.3 Depth Cues 1277.4 Landscape Painting 1297.5 Surface Geometry 1317.6 Travel Time Surface 1337.7 Surface Value 136

Chapter 8: The Wood and the Trees 1388.1 Sculptured Characters 1388.2 Circles, Pies and Rings 1408.3 Bars and Pyramids 1428.4 Flocks of Arrows 1458.5 Trees and Castles 1478.6 Crowds of Faces 1498.7 Information Overload 152

Chapter 9: Volume Visualization 1549.1 The Third Dimension 1549.2 Spaces, Times and Places 1569.3 Spacetime Continuum 1599.4 Three Dimensional Graphs 1639.5 Flows Through Time 1669.6 Volume Rendering 1689.7 Interactive Visualization 170

Conclusion: Another Geography 172

Bibliography 180

Appendices 233Appendix A: Circular Cartogram Algorithm 234Appendix B: Parliamentary Constituencies 1955-1987 Continuity238Appendix C: Parliamentary Constituencies 1955-1987 Results259Appendix D: Average Housing Price by Constituency 1983-1989275Appendix E: Scottish Ward to Postcode Sector Look-up Table285Appendix F: Local Government Wards, 1981 and 1987 291

Index 317

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Creating the Graphics 16

Figure 2: Printing in Colour 20

Figure 3: Recording the Places 28

Figure 4: Drawing the Maps 31

Figure 5: Storing the Geometry 35

Figure 6: The Areal Hierarchy 38

Figure 7: The Mercator Projection 52

Figure 8: The Algorithm at Work 59

Figure 9: Deriving a Constant 61

Figure 10: Many-dimensional Cartograms 64

Figure 11: Storing the Census 70

Figure 12: Working Definitions 78

Figure 13: Two-dimensional Smoothing 80

Figure 14: Linking the Censuses 90

Figure 15: How Closely Connected? 91

Figure 16: Measuring the Changes 93

Figure 17: Storing the Flows 105

Figure 18: A Significant Flow 111

Figure 19: Drawing Overlapping Arrows 112

Figure 20: The Electoral Triangle 126

Figure 21: The Perspective Projection 128

Figure 22: Travel Time Surface 135

Figure 23: Areal Interpolation 139

Figure 24: Trees and Pyramids 144

Figure 25: Constructing Face Glyphs 150

Figure 26: Three-dimensional Smoothing 160

Figure 27: The Electoral Tetrahedron 163

Figure 28: Three-dimensional Structure 167

Figure 29: References Over Time 232

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List of PrintsI Two images from the infinity of the Mandelbrot set (Colour). 1II Land use close-up of Northern Britain (Colour). 2III Journey to work flows of over ten people between wards from the 10% sample. 3IV The changing distribution of housing by price, attributes and sales, 1983-1987. 4V Migration flows between all regions in 1976 — flows sorted by contiguity order. 5VI Yearly migration flows between English and Welsh wards 1980/1981. 6VII The changing distribution of age and gender in Britain 1971-1981 (Colour). 7VIII Voting composition on the electoral cartograms of Northern Britain (Colour). 8IX Voting composition on the electoral cartograms of Southern Britain (Colour). 9X The distribution of employment by industry, status and gender (Colour). 10XI Stills from a conventional animation of the computer (Colour). 11XII Stills from a ray-traced animation of the computer (Colour). 12XIII Ray-traced surfaces of the Mandelbrot and Julia sets. 13XIV Visualizing Fourier transforms — the art in the science (Colour). 14XV A maze of colour — the detail a low resolution image can show (Colour). 15XVI Visualization of the Mandelbrot set — magnification and generalization (Colour). 16XVII Travel time from the Tyneside road network (Colour). 17XVIII Three alternative colour schemes and keys (Colour). 18XIX The concentration of British born place of birth (Colour). 19XX The distributions of population, age, gender and children in London (Colour). 20XXI The distributions of place of birth in London (Colour). 21XXII The distributions of employment, occupation and graduates in London (Colour). 22XXIII The distribution of broad industrial groups in Britain, 1987 (Colour). 23XXIV The changing distribution of broad industrial groups, 1984-87, increases (Colour). 24XXV The changing distribution of broad industrial groups, 1984-87, decreases (Colour). 25XXVI The change in employment by industry, status and gender, 1984-1987 (Colour). 26XXVII Political swing on the electoral cartograms of Northern Britain (Colour). 27XXVIII Political swing on the electoral cartograms of Southern Britain (Colour). 28XXIX The distribution of voting in English and Welsh local elections (Colour). 29XXX Land use in Britain by 1km square grid (Colour). 30XXXI Level II European Regions — annotated base map shaded by unemployment rate. 31XXXII Counties and Scottish Regions — annotated base map shaded by unemployment rate.32XXXIII Family Practitioner Committee Areas — annotated base map shaded by unemployment rate.33XXXIV Local Education Authorities — annotated base map shaded by unemployment rate. 34XXXV “Functional Cities” — annotated base map shaded by unemployment rate. 35XXXVI Local Labour Market Areas — annotated base map shaded by unemployment rate. 36XXXVII Travel-to-work Areas — annotated base map shaded by unemployment rate. 37XXXVIII Local government districts — annotated base map shaded by unemployment rate. 38XXXIX Parliamentary Constituencies — annotated base map shaded by unemployment rate.39XL Amalgamated Office Areas — annotated base map shaded by unemployment rate. 40XLI Postcode Areas — coloured at random (Colour). 41XLII Postcode Districts — coloured at random (Colour). 42XLIII Postcode Sectors — coloured at random (Colour). 43XLIV The British mainland rail network on an equal land area projection. 44XLV The British mainland rail network on an equal population projection. 45XLVI The British primary road network on an equal land area projection. 46XLVII The British primary road network on an equal population projection. 47XLVIII Experiments with area cartograms (Colour). 48XLIX Continuous area cartograms of the British population (Colour). 49L County boundaries showing bridges which maintain ward continuity. 50LI The evolution of a cartogram of population by County. 51LII The County population cartogram with arrows representing topology. 52LIII Local authority districts on an equal land area projection indexed for identification. 53LIV Local authority districts — indexed list in alphabetical order. 54LV Local authority districts cartogram indexed for identification. 55LVI Parliamentary Constituencies on an equal area projection indexed for identification. 56LVII Parliamentary Constituencies — indexed, list in alphabetical order. 57LVIII Parliamentary Constituency cartogram indexed for identification. 58

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LIX Census wards — 1981 resident population area cartogram. 59LX The concentration of unemployment by ward. 60LXI The distribution of unemployment by ward. 61LXII Counties and Scottish regions — four colour map. 62LXIII Counties and Scottish Regions on the enumeration district cartogram. 63LXIV Enumeration district population cartogram. 64LXV 1981 equal population grid squares. 65LXVI 1981 population enumeration district cartogram showing the national grid. 66LXVII The changing distribution of total population in Britain, 1971-1981. 67LXVIII The distribution of age and gender in Britain, 1981 (Colour). 68LXIX The concentration of age and gender in Britain, 1981 (Colour). 69LXX The distribution of children by age in Britain, 1981 (Colour). 70LXXI The distribution of Irish born in Britain, 1981. 71LXXII The distribution of British born place of birth, 1981 (Colour). 72LXXIII The distribution of Overseas born place of birth, 1981 (Colour). 73LXXIV The concentration of Overseas born place of birth, 1981 (Colour). 74LXXV The distribution of employment in Britain, 1981 (Colour). 75LXXVI The concentration of employment in Britain, 1981 (Colour). 76LXXVII The distribution of occupation in Britain, 1981 (Colour). 77LXXVIII The concentration of occupation in Britain, 1981 (Colour). 78LXXIX The distribution of graduates in Britain, 1981 (Colour). 79LXXX The distribution of housing price in Britain, 1983. 80LXXXI The distribution of voting in the 1987 British general election (Colour). 81LXXXII The map of voting in the 1987 British general election (Colour). 82LXXXIII The distribution of first placed parties in the 1987 British general election (Colour). 83LXXXIV The distribution of second placed parties in the 1987 British general election (Colour).84LXXXV The distribution of non-voting in the 1987 British general election. 85LXXXVI The distribution of voting composition in the 1987 British local elections (Colour). 86LXXXVII The changing distribution of British born place of birth, 1971-1981. 87LXXXVIII The changing distribution of overseas born place of birth, 1971-1981 (Colour). 88LXXXIX The changing distribution of employment in Britain, 1971-1981 (Colour). 89XC The space/time trend of unemployment in Britain by office areas, 1978-1990. 90XCI The space/time trend of unemployment in Britain by counties, 1978-1990. 91XCII The changing distribution of occupation in Britain, 1971-1981 (Colour). 92XCIII The distribution of housing price inflation in Britain, 1983/1984. 93XCIV The distribution of housing price inflation in Britain, 1984/1985. 94XCV The distribution of housing price inflation in Britain, 1985/1986. 95XCVI The distribution of housing price inflation in Britain, 1986/1987. 96XCVII The distribution of housing price inflation in Britain, 1987/1988. 97XCVIII The distribution of housing price inflation in Britain, 1988/1989. 98XCIX The distribution of housing price in Britain, 1989. 99C Voting composition by constituency, 1955-1987 (Colour). 100CI The distributions of first placed party, 1955-1987 (Colour). 101CII The distributions of second placed party, 1955-1987 (Colour). 102CIII The distributions of non-voting by constituency, 1955-1987. 103CIV Migration flows between all regions in 1976, sorted by contiguity order. 104CV Migration flows between metropolitan counties and other areas, 1975-1976. 105CVI Daily commuting flows on an equal land area projection in 1981. 106CVII Daily commuting flows on an equal population projection in 1981. 107CVIII Daily commuting flows as a proportion of destination employees. 108CIX Daily commuting flows as a proportion of destination residents. 109CX Daily commuting flows on an equal area projection by occupation, 1981 (Colour). 110CXI Daily commuting flows in population space by occupation, 1981 (Colour). 111CXII Migration flows between family practitioner areas of 1 in 200 people. 112CXIII Migration flows between family practitioner areas of 1 in 300 people. 113CXIV Migration flows between family practitioner areas of 1 in 500 people. 114CXV Migration flows between family practitioner areas of 1 in 1000 people. 115CXVI Migration flows between family practitioner areas of 1 in 2000 people. 116CXVII Migration flows between family practitioner areas of 1 in 2777 people. 117CXVIII Migration flows between family practitioner areas on an equal area projection. 118CXIX Migration flows between English and Welsh counties on an equal area projection. 119

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CXX Yearly migration flows on an equal area projection by occupation, 1981 (Colour). 120CXXI Yearly migration flows in population space by occupation, 1981 (Colour). 121CXXII The use of contours and colour to depict surface height (Colour). 122CXXIII The use of contours without colour to depict surface height. 123CXXIV British population surface showing the 1987 general election results (Colour). 124CXXV British population two-way surface of the 1987 general election results (Colour). 125CXXVI The distribution of voting composition in the 1987 British general election (Colour). 126CXXVII The national constituency voting compositions, 1955-1987 (Colour). 127CXXVIII 1981 County council elections — English voting composition. 128CXXIX 1985 County council elections — English voting composition. 129CXXX 1989 County council elections — English voting composition. 130CXXXI 1981 County council elections — English voting composition surface. 131CXXXII 1985 County council elections — English voting composition surface. 132CXXXIII 1981/1985 County council elections — changing English voting composition surface.133CXXXIV 1989 County council elections — English voting composition surface. 134CXXXV 1985/1989 County council elections —changing English voting composition surface. 135CXXXVI 1981/85/89 County council elections —changing English voting composition surface. 136CXXXVII The distribution of unemployment in Britain 1981— shown as a surface. 137CXXXVIII The changing distribution of first place party in Britain, 1983-1987 (Colour). 138CXXXIX The changing distribution of first place party in Britain, 1955-1987 (Colour). 139CXL The space/time trend of unemployment in Britain, 1978-1990. 140CXLI The detailed national composition of industry in Britain, 1981 141CXLII The changing national composition of industry in Britain, 1984-1987. 142CXLIII The distribution of employment by industry, status and gender, 1987. 143CXLIV The change in employment by industry, status and gender, 1984-1987. 144CXLV The changing distribution of voting composition in Britain, 1983-87 (Colour). 145CXLVI The changing distribution of voting composition in Britain, 1955-87 (Colour). 146CXLVII The distribution of housing by price, attributes and sales, 1987. 147CXLVIII The distribution of housing by price, attributes and sales, 1987 (Colour). 148CXLIX The changing distribution of housing by price, attributes and sales, 1983/1987 (Colour).149CL Chernoff faces showing all permutations of five levels of four features. 150CLI The distribution of voting, housing, employment and industry in 1983 (Colour). 151CLII The distribution of voting, housing, employment and industry in 1987 (Colour). 152CLIII The change in voting, housing, employment & industry, 1983-1987 (Colour). 153CLIV The distribution of population by county in 1981 (Colour). 154CLV Population change in Britain by district, 1961-1991 (Colour). 155CLVI The space/time trend of unemployment in Britain by cubes, 1978-1990. 156CLVII The space/time trend of unemployment in Britain by rings, 1978-1990. 157CLVIII The distribution of years of highest house price inflation in Britain, 1983 to 1989. 158CLIX The distribution of childhood leukaemia in Britain, 1966-1983 (Colour). 159CLX Six views of the childhood leukaemia spacetime distribution, 1966-1986. 160CLXI Key to cancer types shown by spheres in the spacetime diagrams (Colour). 161CLXII The distribution of childhood cancers in Euclidean spacetime (Colour). 162CLXIII The distribution of childhood cancers in spacetime 1968-1979 (Colour). 163CLXIV The distribution of childhood cancers in spacetime 1980-1991 (Colour). 164CLXV The distribution of childhood cancers in Teesside spacetime, from the east (Colour).165CLXVI The distribution of childhood cancers in Teesside spacetime, from the west (Colour).166CLXVII The 1988 district election results: Scottish voting composition tetrahedron. 167CLXVIII A schematic representation of four party voting compositions. 168CLXIX The 1988 district election results: Scottish voting composition unfolded. 169CLXX Four perspective views of the 1988 Scottish district elections composition (Colour). 170CLXXI A ray-traced image of the 1988 Scottish district elections composition (Colour). 171CLXXII The ward cartogram drawn using Theisson polygons. 172CLXXIII The Transformed map of voting in the 1987 British general election (Colour). 173CLXXIV Transforming the political map of northern Britain to population space (Colour). 174CLXXV Transforming the political map of southern Britain to population space (Colour). 175CLXXVI The distribution of non-voting by voting composition in the 1987 general election. 176CLXXVII The distribution of non-voting in constituencies by voting composition, 1955-1987. 177CLXXVIII The distribution of occupation in Britain, 1981, after binomial smoothing (Colour). 178CLXXIX The distribution of voting composition in British local elections 1987-1990 (Colour). 179

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Preface

This dissertation is about new ways of presenting and understanding

some of the vast amounts of information which have been collected

about our society. It is based on the premise that huge numbers of

figures, incomprehensible in themselves, could contain a lot of

information that is distorted, even lost, in conventional statistical

analysis and cartographic display. This work has used the hopes and

ideas of numerous sources as to how to visualize information about

society more effectively. Recent dramatic increases in computer

capability have allowed me to create images which would not have

been conceivable two or three years ago. The approach has been

experimental. I often had little idea what an image would look like on

screen or paper until it was actually produced. The illustrations

presented here are only a small selection of those created.

Many ideas and several themes are contained in this thesis. The text

describes the rationale for, and development of, a new way of

visualizing information in geographical research. Through the pictures

the methods are illustrated; mistakes, techniques and discoveries

shown. From the footnotes, which are largely quotations from a

disparate literature, the origins of many of the ideas can be found.

Time and again the suggestions of others to move in these directions

are cited. Through technical asides some of the practical realities of

the work are described. Through the illustrations and their legends, a

picture of what has been happening to Britain in recent years unfolds.

Many of the pictures justify an extended discussion, but I have aimed

to keep the commentary brief. I have not included much detail about

the computer software I have written and used because much of that is

dependant on a novel (but inexpensive) hardware configuration and

progress is so rapid that such knowledge is of only transient value.

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Periodically I have commented on the changing political and social

geography of Britain that the mapping has revealed.

Numerous case studies are included. Questions concerning the

implications of the spread of people in time and space are addressed at

many points. The patterns through ten British general elections are

depicted. The distribution of voting in ten thousand local ward

contests is shown in a unique illustration. Some aspects of what the

census can tell us about many people from their ages, sexes,

occupations, activities and qualifications is revealed over a large set of

very small areas. How people get to work, and the structure of the

towns and cities in which they live, is examined. Migration is studied

in several ways. The changing patterns of migration from birthplace

are shown, and the streams of movement that cut across the country

are drawn in unprecedented detail. House price change is visualized

across several years and thousands of places. New techniques are

developed to show the structure of local housing markets. Through

other methods, the changes in this country’s industrial structure are

seen as they have affected people in actual communities. The spatial

and social manoeuvering of political allegiances is viewed from

several angles, over the same period, and the relationships discussed.

Finally, a smaller scale of analysis is considered, looking at what

many images can tell us about the distribution of a disease, viewed

from many different directions in space and time.

These social and political subjects are not arranged in their own,

individual chapters, but run through the dissertation, which itself looks

at methods of visualization, rather than the visualization of subjects.

The work begins with a plea for a more human cartography to depict

the events of our lives. The long history, but recent explosion, of

envisioning information is then introduced. The rationale for this

method of studying people, places and spaces is discussed. The form

of artificial reality we require — area cartograms — are produced.

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The central part of the work looks at the honeycomb structure formed

by the spatial patterns of society at single points in time; and how that

alters through transforming the mosaic. The cobweb of flows which is

responsible for most of the changes and stability is then drawn. This

part of the dissertation is illustrated by many case studies. The last

part attempts to show more complex aspects on the surface of social

landscapes. Sculptured symbols allow us to see the relationships

between the wood and the trees of social structure. Finally, a three-

dimensional volume visualization of geographical and historical social

structures is attempted. The thesis concludes by describing how all

these methods and insights can together create another geography.

Human geography demands that we consider what is happening in

many places at the same time. We do not need to study aspects of the

world out of context. Here, an attempt is made to cover much ground

and show numerous relationships. To do this it is necessary to be brief

in detail, to be broad in scope, so the pictures often have to speak for

themselves. Much of what has been shown here has never been

successfully analysed by conventional means. However, this research

does not come out of the blue, but accompanies thousands of papers

written in the last three years describing the academic hope for a

revolution in visualization, the history of which goes back to the first

drawings. The message of visualization is that we should literally look

at what is happening, drawing pictures in preference to writing words,

listing numbers or designing theoretical models. It has only recently

become possible to do this in such quantity and quality of detail. The

prints resulting here are the tools of enquiry, not simple pictures for

embellishment, but the foundation of the thesis. This is a story of

invention and discovery.

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Acknowledgements

This thesis is based on two years of research funded by the Strang Studentship ofNewcastle University. During the course of the research I have been helped bymany individuals.

The inter-library loan staff of the Robinson Library kindly waived their normalrestrictions to meet my countless requests. Judith Houston helped secure thefunding and dealt extremely efficiently with the administrative side of my workthroughout the period. Many of the staff of the Centre for Urban and RegionalDevelopment Studies and the Geography and Planning Departments showed aninterest and encouraged me in my work, including Alan Gillard, Tony Champion,Peter Taylor, David Sear and James Cornford. Colin Wymer, Simon Raybould andMike Coombes helped satisfy my appetite for digital information from censusflows, the National On-line Manpower Information System and Building Societyrecords.

The researchers associated with the NorthEast Regional Research Laboratory wereparticularly supportive. Zhilin Li allowed me to use a digital terrain model of partof Scotland. Anna Cross assisted in accessing the Cancer Registry information.Steve Carver provided records of road, rail and land-use data. Chris Brunsdon whoadvised on the analysis of the house price sample. Stan Openshaw supervised theproject, financed much of the equipment, and supplied the local election and 1971census information.

In particular, thanks are due to Martin Charlton, who read this document and spentmany hours helping me amass the vast majority of the information used here, aswell as permitting extensive use of a great deal of expensive equipment. BruceTether spent many days assisting with the editing and collection of the thousandsof election results used, and gave useful criticism and advice. Richard Park readand commented on the final draft. Ile Ashcroft and Edward Jones, corrected muchof the English, while Stacy Hewitt gave the work a professional proof-reading.

Eric Charlesworth advised on the style at an early stage, as well as providinggeographical advice. Bronwen Dorling meticulously corrected my writing and gaveconstant encouragement, as well as originally teaching me to read. David Dorlinghelped rearrange many of the ideas presented here, and first taught me to program.Finally Anna Macdonald spent several weeks referencing small scale maps andtyping in numerous extensive quotations and tables of data. She also had to put upwith my obsession to finish the work on time. Nothing is achieved in isolation.

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Introduction: Human Cartography

Images are only images. But if they are numerous, repeated, identical, theycannot all be wrong. They show us that in a varied universe, forms andperformances can be similar: there are towns, routes, states, patterns ...which in spite of everything resemble each other.

[Braudel F., 1979, p.133]

This dissertation presents the thesis that the study of society can be

enlightened through the visualization of social structure. Spatial social

patterns provide the most arresting pictures of the underlying order

and workings of the system, but other facets of the process can also be

transformed into images to illuminate their organization. Visualization

in social science throws light into a dark world of specialisms and

obscurity, showing at an instant how all is connected and everywhere

is different. Most importantly we can begin to see how the structure is

changing what was, and what could be.

The antecedents of this work lie most firmly in human geography and

cartography while being strongly influenced by writings in, and the

combinations of, many other disciplines (Arnheim R. 1976, Muehrcke P.C.

1978, 1981, Bertin J. 1983b, Szegö J. 1984, 1987, Anderson J.M. 1988, Cuff D.J. 1989).

There are contributions from studies in computer and statistical

graphics, graphic design and art, mathematical abstraction (Print I)

and political science. Current thinking in the study of history and

sociology guides much of the writing. Above all, this dissertation is

concerned with designing new ways of seeing the social world we live

in. Before doing that, it is necessary to explain why the accepted

geographical techniques are being discarded by the visual

methodology proposed here. In particular, the conventional use of

1Introduction: Human Cartography

maps of physical geography, to show the spatial structure of society, is

rejected.

Maps were designed to explore new territories and fight over old ones.

They show where oceans lie and rivers run. Their projections are

calculated to aid navigation by compass or depict the quantity of land

under crops (Print II ). They are a flat representation of part of the

surface of the globe; they show things which often cannot be seen.

How can we see social structure, as the map opens up land to the

eye1? How can we begin to see the patterns of society, which, from

being part of it we know are there, but have never seen?

Maps were not designed to show the spatial distributions of people,

although the single spatial distribution of people upon the surface of

the globe, at one instance in time, can be shown on them. They cannot

illustrate the simplest human geography of population. People are but

points on the map, clustered into collections of points called homes,

into groups of points known as villages or cities. Communities of

people are not like fields of crops. The paths through space which they

follow are not long wide rivers of water, and yet, to see anything on

maps of people they must be shown as such.

Conventional maps cannot show how many people live in small areas,

instead they show how little land supports so many people. They

cannot show who the people are, what they do, where they go. They

show no temporal distribution, they do not need to — how quickly do

rivers move or mountains shrink on a human timescale? They will not

show the distributions of people changing — international migration,

moving house, or just going to work. They cannot portray the

2

1 The advantage of maps is simple — they provide context: Maps frown upon the isolation of single items. They preservethe continuity of the real world. They show things in theirsurroundings and therefore call for more active discernmenton the part of the user, who is offered more than he came for;but the user is also being taught how to look at thingsintelligently. One aspect of looking at things intelligently is tolook at them in context. [Arnheim R. 1976 p.5]

2 [a] The search for a definition of "maps" never ceases: The current definition of cartography is inadequate largelybecause it does not define clearly the focus of the subject,namely maps. The description of maps is circular — "mapsmay be regarded as including all types of maps, charts,sections ...". This implies two types of maps, namely asubclass of specific forms, called maps, and a superclass ofgeneric forms also called maps. The subclass of maps isdefined as a "representation, normally to scale and on a flat


distribution of the wealthy or the poor; on the map, at almost any

scale, they live in much the same square inch of paper. Nor will they

show where and when people had certain jobs, certain power, voted,

were out of work, lived and died. What, after all, is a map2 (Hsu M.L.

1979, Brannon G. 1989, Phillips R.J. 1989)?

Pictures can make ideas plausible, paper beautiful, millions of

numbers meaningful. They have intrigued many, as maps and charts

of rivers and mountains, to the point of being the pretext for their

studying geography. Here traditional maps are the inspiration, but not

the foundation, for the generation of new graphics to form pictures of

people, with their rivers of roads down which they flow, and

mountains of cities up which they climb. The theory of how the

patterns, movement and evolution of the lives of millions can be

transformed to be represented visually, is presented here3.

We want to make sense of the reality of thousands of people

simultaneously threading their way through life (Print III ). What are

they doing and why are they doing it? How can we see into every

home, know what everyone does? We can't, but we can guess and we

have some clues. We can guess from what, introspectively, we know

from being part of society. We amass clues when people are counted.

There has been an obsession for counting people since recording

3

medium, of a selection of material or abstract features on, orin relation to, the surface of the earth or of a celestial body"(ICA [International Cartographic Association], 1973, p.7).This second definition makes it clear that the subclass differsfrom its generic class in some ways. But, the two definitionstaken together do not identify the common properties sharedby all maps, which set them apart from artefacts which are notmaps. [Visvalingam 1989 p.26]

[b] The most important aspect of definition concernsvisualization:

For the ICA, oblivious to the contradiction inherent in its owndefinition, the end 'product' or cartographic process (the map)is to be 'visual, digital, or tactile'. Yet how can numbers, theconstituents of what has been called, appropriately enough,the 'invisible map' be described as a map before they havebeen processed into an image (the visual map)? In followingthe politics of expediency rather than linguistic logic, andanxious to ward off (in the words of one President of the ICA)the threat of 'rapid submergence' by the new GIS-based

technology, the ICA has managed to shoot itself in the foot. Ithas given the non-map parity with the map! [Harley J.B. 1990p.16]

[c] An old definition is surprisingly apt: One of the definitions of the word "map" that appears in theOxford Dictionary dates from a source of 1586, where it wasused to describe "a circumstantial account of a state of things("circumstantial" is defined as "full of circumstances, detailsor minutiae"): not a bad objective 400 years later! [BickmoreD.P. 1975 p.328]

3 The term and philosophy of visualization did not appearovernight:

The medium of graphics has long been used to create two-dimensional representation of spatial phenomena for theprimary purpose of visualization and, for many, this has alsobeen the essence of "cartography". [Muehrcke P. 1972 p.27]


became possible. Every ten years, in many countries, hundreds of

thousands of people count people (the census). Increasingly our

actions are being recorded; we are each noted now several times a

day, from the heat we register on satellite images, to almost every

transaction and phone call we make or unit of electricity we consume.

The question this thesis addresses is how can the part of this huge

disparate collection of clues that is available to us be built up to form

an at least partial picture of the patterns we imagine exist. The answer

is, as it has often before been, in the form of pictures.

The conventional statistical treatments of numerical information about

people averages them, agglomerates them and destroys the detail that

is of interest4. They take a million numbers and return half a dozen.

These techniques were conceived when little better could be done.

Now it is possible to show you a million bits of information at a

glance that would be challenging to describe in a thousand words

(Print IV). Our minds are the most powerful tools we have to address

these problems. The difficulty comes in trying to address these

problems to our minds.

Orthodox cartographic methodology has been translated onto the

computer screen (Bickmore D.P. 1975, Hagen C.B. 1982, Taylor D.R.F. 1985, Jupe D.

1987, Goodchild M.F. 1988b, Visvalingham M. 1989, Muller J.C. 1989). The name has

4

4 It is the great wealth of pattern and variation that is ofinterest in many of the pictures drawn in this dissertation:

The dismissal of geographical diversity as merely 'noise' or'residuals' is a betrayal of what geography is. [Taylor P.J. 1991p.24]

5 [a] The cartographic basis of physical geography datesfrom a time when land was all important and people had fewrights:

Traditional cartography is seen as an optimal response to ahighly constrained technology based largely on pen and paper.Although many of the conventions of manual cartographyappear to be intelligent choices, they have nevertheless beenmade in an extremely restricted environment which imposes alimited view of reality. Early digital technology did little tobroaden the constraints, and led cartography, map analysis andspatial analysis in different directions. More recent hardwareand the results of intensive research have produced a digitalcartography which can successfully emulate its analogue

parent. However, its true potential lies in less conventionalmethods of analysis and display and in the degree to which itcan escape its traditional constraints. [Goodchild M.F. 1988p.311]

[b] Putting the argument less gracefully: In physical geography, only that which has an effect onmankind is studied. Now that men are much less dependent onthe countryside than on cities, why have geographers notfollowed mankind? Why have geographers left their mindsback on the farm? [Bunge W. 1975 p.177]

[c] New computer systems often fail practically as well astheoretically:

There seems to be an inverse law where, as the sophisticationof GIS software grows, the attention to basic principles ofgraphic design lessens. The emphasis is on getting somethingon the screen quickly rather than getting something on the


changed to geographic information systems, but the fundamental basis

of physical geography has remained5. Thematic maps drastically

distort the reality they purport to contain, at worse reversing the

patterns that exist. People who study people, who are interested in

societies, politics, history, economics and increasingly even human

geography, do not use these maps. A topographic map base allows, at

most, the depiction of human land use. People have created maps

based on human geography in the past, but only with the advent of

sophisticated computer graphics has it become possible to do this on

an easily replicable basis.

This thesis is presented as part of the academic revolution known as

visualization, and parallels are drawn with the wider world of

computer graphics. Therefore the basics of what can physically be

seen have to be introduced. How these images are created has to be

explained — from the theoretical to the practical problems. Most

importantly I address the problem of how time and space can be

transformed to represent clearly the patterns within them, on paper, or

in animation.

That transformation is essential for representation is a most difficult

5

screen that is meaningful. [Medyckyj-Scott D. 1991 p.21]

6 [a] The geographical features most of us recognise arenot physical — we do not live near mountains:

Base data is so traditional that it invites a critical review.Consider the use of rivers on base maps. With the invention ofbridges to cross them and railroads to compete withtransportation on them, it could be argued that rivers havebecome unimportant enough to be eliminated from the map.They might be replaced by major railroad lines. In general, thetraditional base map data is especially unsatisfactory to humangeographers. Terrain features might be profitably dropped infavor of a surface of population density. The "continents" ofpopulation clusters on the Eastern shores of the United States,Western Europe, China and elsewhere are many times moreimportant to the economic geographer than the distinctionbetween land and water traditionally shown and memorized.Major cities are more important "islands" for many purposesthan the atolls of the Pacific. It is probably true that of all thedegrees of latitude and longitude shown on the map, only theequator and the poles are on the mental map and, therefore,the other degrees might be dropped as superfluous. Much ofwhat has become traditional base map material might havebeen selected for no better reason than the ease with which thematerial could be gathered by early explorers. It is mucheasier to plot the continental outlines, rivers and mountain

peaks than to obtain a census of population or an accurate mapof arable land. [Bunge W. 1966 pp.45-46]

[b] A more human-based geography is being called for: The inspiration may come not only from the field ofgeography / cartography but also from different fields ofartistic endeavour, and lead to the design of maps of humanactivities which are much more vital than the thematic mapsof today. Paradoxically, developments in computer technologymay lead to the creation of maps which, when it comes tospontaneity and liveliness, have more in common with thepopularly-admired and beloved, hand-drawn maps of themiddle-ages and the renaissance than with strict, formalizedcartography of the modern day.

However, certain conditions must be fulfilled for this tohappen. Suitable cartographic data must be made available,and computers must be adapted to user needs in such a waythat the technology does not impose itself between the userand his future map. An additional precondition is a revivedinterest in working with spatial / geographical problems, and arenewal of the skills involved in solving such problems bygraphic means as well as in presenting these solutions in acreative way.

If these requirements are fulfilled — and the geographer /cartographer must assume a great deal of responsibility forthis — a new era will be initiated for human cartography.


argument to accept, for it completely alters the images produced and

hopefully the emphasis of the viewer to places, and, more importantly,

the relationship between places and times — the metric. The argument

for transforming to population space, distributions which exist only in

that space, has been made repeatedly over many decades in human

geography. It is simply reiterated in stronger terms here, the new

images being traditionally referred to as cartograms. Put simply,

people no longer exist on paper as points, but as areas6, so can now be

legitimately drawn as fields, their paths as rivers (Print V) perhaps

running through a landscape of accessibility covered with the

vegetation of some aspect of social structure.

This thesis draws on those patterns of people that are familiar to this

writer and the envisaged reader. Britain in the 1970s and 80s is all that

I have known in any detail, and only a very small part of that. The

clues given by the official sources consist mostly of the absolute

numbers, age and sex of people across the country. Then, every ten

years the combinations of their answers to a few questions at the

census are provided, where they were born, what job they do or did,

where they did it, where they moved (Print VI) and so on. But there

are other forms of information that can be drawn on, and, as one claim

of visualization is the ability to handle large quantities of loosely

related data coherently, other sources and surveys are called upon.

6

[Szegö J. 1987 p.231]

7 [a] There are many sources of digital information aboutpeople in Britain:

The only nation-wide count of the population in Britain occursat census year; the last two censuses were held in 1971 and1981. With no 1976 or 1986 mid-term censuses, thisinformation is currently produced only once every ten years.However, during the inter-censal years there are a number ofother sources which can provide information on the changingsocioeconomic, demographic and manpower characteristics ofthe population at the local scale ... [McKee C. 1989 p.1]

[b] Pre-eminent in all these data sets is the decennialcensus:

Some information on other characteristics of the populationsuch as house-hold structure, employment status, ethniccomposition and housing situation can be gleaned from theannual General Household and Labour Force surveys, but the

problem of small sample size virtually rules out their use atscales below the Standard Region. As a result, the PopulationCensus is not just the best, but in practice the only, source ofreliable data on a reasonably wide range of demographic andsocio-economic characteristics at sub-regional scale.Moreover, it has the advantage of providing data down to thelevel of the individual enumeration district covering roughly500 inhabitants, which, even if too small for certain purposes,can be treated as a building block for areas specially definedby the user (Rhind, 1983). [Champion A. G. 1989 p.113]

[c] National and local election results also provideinformation:

In many ways elections are a positivist's dream. Millions ofpeople go through the process of voting in numerous countriesevery year and these decisions are put together and publishedby areal units ready for analysis by social scientists. [TaylorP.J. 1978 p.153]


How people voted in the local and national elections of the decades,

national surveys of workplaces which were conducted in several

years, the health service records of migration, building societies' lists

of house sales, and information on the infrastructure of roads, railways

and settlements for example, are all digitally available7. What is

sought here is the means of putting these numbers together, as a

collection of images forming one picture of one place during a short,

twenty year or so period of time.

The most simple of spatial distributions to envisage are those captured

at single instances of time, and so it is these with which the examples

of the visualization of spatial distributions in this dissertation begin.

Much of the static spatial social structure is already known intuitively

to social scientists, if not in such great detail and with all places shown

in immediate relation to each other. The degree of complexity and

interdependence shown by the images in this work may also be new to

many. The dissertation then moves on to show changes in the

population over time in a single picture (Print XVII). Much of what

this shows about Britain will be unexpected, as it is only through the

methods employed here that such things can be seen. The way people

move about, day to day, and year to year, is visualized as streams

flowing through space. It must always be remembered that I am not

concerned with two hundred, or a few thousand people, but the

activities of as many as fifty million. The computer is used to handle

these vast numbers, not to produce more numbers, but pictures —

black and white, coloured, and, when required, moving.

Finally I can begin to produce images to depict the little that is known

about large numbers of people, which are totally different from

anything we would recognise in current practice. A notional surface is

proposed where the distance between points is equal to how long it

would take to travel between them, upon which we can then drape

other distributions. It may soon be possible to create true volumes of

7Introduction: Human Cartography

pattern and colour to depict the entire evolution of a single

phenomenon, for example unemployment at every place, every month.

The alternative is to cut through this distribution, collapsing all of

space to one point, to draw graphs over time, or all of time to a point,

to show a simple spatial pattern. Inevitably we ask, can we now

combine these disparate images and compare the evolution of one

thing with the flows of another and the distribution of yet others,

without collapsing reality into dimensions which cannot contain its

complexity?

Presented here is a methodology for studying relatively data rich

spatio-temporal distributions and their interrelations. This goes

beyond the accepted format of book chapters (containing a few tables,

perhaps a graph, or a coarse thematic map) on each of a small number

of topics, with an overview chapter implying that everything is related

but that it's all very complicated. If it is complicated it is interesting —

so let's look at it, rather than repeatedly explaining away the simplest

points, tabulating and sorting the basic rates, or drawing yet more

examples of inappropriate poor quality choropleth maps (by computer

of course).

Images of recent British history are being created here which allow

8

[d] We use whatever information is accessible:

In this book, votes receive rather more emphasis than otheractivities only because they have become the currency ofpolitical sociology rather than because they are more "special"or necessarily more legitimate than other activities. [AgnewJ.A. 1987 p.6]

8 [a] The fundamental cartographic questions are: "What to map?" "How to map?" "What to do with the maps?" These three questions sum up the main problems connectedwith the mapping of population phenomena and statistical datagenerally. Each question gives birth to a brood of lesserquestions, the lesser questions to a third generation, and so on.The outlines of this genealogy will be traced in the presentpaper.

I. WHAT TO MAP? The offspring of "What to map? are (1) "What has beenmapped?" (2) "What can be mapped?" and (3) "What shouldbe mapped?" ... [Wright J.K. (ed.) 1938 p.1]

[b] Yet fewer and fewer people are asking these crucial

questions:

Eavesdropping in the conference bar, the cartographer'schatter is of the virtuoso Macintosh rather than the question ofwhy and what we map. Are the mechanics of the newtechnology so preoccupying that cartographers have lostinterest in the meaning of what they represent? And in itssocial consequences? And in the evidence that mapsthemselves can be said to embody a social structure? Ifmaterial efficiency is allowed to dominate the design andconstruction of maps, we can see why the ethical issues tendto pass unnoticed. The technology of Geographic InformationSystems (GIS) becomes the message, not just the new form ormedium of our knowledge. [Harley J.B. 1990 p.7]

[c] Questions can often be more important than answers: It is surprising to learn that such a seemingly perverse worldview is embraced by modern physicists. In the words of JohnWheeler, one of the grand old men of physics, "No elementaryphenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observedphenomenon." By this, Wheeler means that the rise ofquantum mechanics has demolished the view that the universesits "out there" while we sit back and observe it. The kinds ofquestions one asks — and the order one asks them in — has a


new questions to be asked, show different distributions to be

explained, the distributions that many social scientists know are there,

but which traditional cartography fails to depict, and hence to

explore8. There are also glaring patterns to be seen in the well trodden

census tables and government figures which have been ignored, before

we even begin to look for the more subtle or complex and detailed

relationships.

Visualization can be claimed to solve many of the fundamental

problems identified in studying spatial social distributions (Prints VIII

& IX). The fact that the way you subdivide the space and time you

choose to study can drastically alter the overall impression of your

results, suggests that there are a variety of different views to be

gained, and we should choose those which we wish to believe, in the

light of all possibilities. Here it is argued that previous numerical

9

profound influence on the answer one gets, and on the worldview one builds up. [Rucker R. 1984 p.193]

[d] What are we doing this for?: The analytic power to order data has potential equally forcontrol or liberation. It is all a matter of questions asked andinterpretations made. [Taylor P.J. 1991 p.30]

9 [a] Many eminent cartographers have called for a changeof approach:

A second challenge requires a greater effort by cartographersto escape from the constraints of euclidean space and toexercise more imagination and originality in producing maps.Barbara Petchenik (Chapter 3) makes a plea that we "... moveour consideration from the domain of rationality and analysisto an exploration of the domain of synthetic intuition". Themap is a designed object and in our concern with the"scientific basis" of cartography in recent years we may havelost sight of the need for more imaginative design. Herecartographers may have to learn from graphic arts. Anincreasing number of thematic maps are being produced bygraphic artists, not by cartographers.

Part of the reason for this is that cartographers are a fairlyconservative group and are still largely prisoners of euclideanspace. Kishimoto (1980) recently drew attention to this fact.We are increasingly coming to accept the essential differencebetween the thematic map and the topographic map but havenot yet accepted that locational accuracy is not always a basicrequirement of the thematic map. We can more effectively andimaginatively map other "spaces" and give more emphasis tomap content than to geographic location.

Here again, cartographers should take note of the work ofpsychologists like Arnheim (1975) and Norman andRumelhart (1975) who argue that what a cartographer wouldregard as a "distortion" of the "real" euclidean space may infact lead to an increase in map clarity. Arnheim uses theexample of the map of the London underground to show how

deliberate distortion of spatial reality can aid the map user andNorman and Rumelhart demonstrate that when people areasked to recreate floor plans their drawings rarely representeuclidean reality. Mills (1981, p.95) comments:

These studies show that human memory is not geared toproduce accurately spatial layouts, even of places with whichone may be very familiar. Instead, people's maps drawn frommemory often distort the shapes and interconnections betweenspaces, making them more straight and symmetrical than theyreally are, thereby serving to highlight functional, not physicalreality.

If this is true of relationships on maps dealing with euclideanspace then it would be reasonable to assume that it would beequally if not more true of thematic maps. If the gestaltpsychologists are right then "... the most effective maps maybe those which distort objective realism in order to facilitatethe calculation process" (Mills, 1981, p.95) and "creativedistortion" may be necessary to improve communication.[Taylor D.R.F. 1983 p.288]

[b] Computer cartography could aid, rather than set back,this new approach:

Cartography in the information age will centre about amultifaceted model of geographic reality, the spatial data base.The challenge facing cartographers will be to devise thetheories, methods, and techniques needed to collect, load,manage, and transform the data items into useableinformation. The new cartographic process will form acontinuum of information flow that can be described in termsof the various generic functions of a spatial data processor.Technological advances will provide the potential forcollection of vast quantities of basic spatial data. Thedistillation of the data into descriptions of geographic realitythat we can understand will require a conception of theabstract modelling process used by a human to comprehendspatial entities. Processes to manipulate the data must bridgethe gap between a user's perception and a computer's


solutions to this problem often encouraged even worse symptoms to

emerge. The philosophy adopted here, is to ask how you amalgamate

individuals rather than subdivide society. A logical unit of analysis

does exist for the study of spacetime in human geography — it is a

human life. As yet we have very little information on single people,

but, at least from the census, the data is given at a resolution whereby,

for national pictures what is produced would hardly appear any

different from pictures drawn with the benefit of such information.

For spatial data with a slightly less fine temporal resolution, what we

have can appear as the full picture would, but somewhat blurred. As

long as methods which depend critically on the spatial and temporal

units (or units which would distort any method) are not adopted, such

problems may well be circumvented9.

Social science does need maps; but the maps that are currently drawn

in its name, apart from often being bad examples of physical

geography's cartography, are bad social science. They make

concentrations appear where they are not, and dissolve existing

patterns. They rarely portray anything but the most simple of spatial

distributions, certainly not spacetime evolution, or the interrelation of

a dozen different influences (Print X). Here some of the particular

solutions to mapping that social science requires are given. It is hoped

that while a new methodology is being explained an alternative picture

of Britain will develop through the subjects covered.

10

representation of spatial reality. Automated cartography willexpand from its robot draftsman roots to a spatial informationsystem using artificial intelligence techniques to allow thecartographer not only to produce cartographic products butalso to convey the user-designed view of geographic reality.[Guptill S.C. & Starr L.E. 1984 p.14]

[c] What ever we do, we must always keep the basic reasonwe draw maps in mind:

If the student already carries in his mind's eye the image of abase map showing the boundaries of the administrative unitsby which statistics are tabulated, he may derive from a table ofstatistics a hazy idea of the form of a distribution. If no suchpicture is present in his mind he can gain no such concept

whatever without the aid of a map. How many of us couldpicture the distribution of population in our own state bystudying the census tables alone? Hence statistical maps aretools for the discovery of new truth. [Wright J.K. (ed.) 1938p.16]


Chapter 1: Envisioning Information

We must create a new language, consider a transitory state of new illusionsand layers of validity and accept the possibility that there may be nolanguage to describe ultimate reality, beyond the language of visions.

[Denes A. 1979 p.3]

1.1 Visual Thinking

Envisioning means bringing into the condition of vision, making

visible, to enable visualization. It is what this thesis practises. Here the

theory behind it is presented. Envisioning is about giving information

to people who can see10. I argue that there are dramatic potential

advantages in using visual images to allow people to unravel the

spatial patterns in complex social structures (Muehrcke P.C. 1969, Arnheim R.

1970, Bertin J. 1981, 1983a, Marr D.

11

10 [a] The value of visualization was also appreciated inthe past:

Often we must deal with conditions where no knownequations will connect our experimental results and where amere tabulation of figures will not yield the desiredinformation without much tedious study. The well recognizedsuperiority of any graphical representation over an equation ortable in conveying a clear impression to the mind of the wayin which a set of variables is related will often in itself be asufficient justification for the use of this type of chart. [PeddleJ.B. 1910 p.98]

[b] Visualization is a way of doing research, not just atechnique for presenting results:

In conclusion, visualization should not be viewed as the endresult of a process of scientific analysis, but rather as theprocess itself. More than simply the application of techniquesfor displaying data, visualization can be used as a paradigmfor exploring regions of untapped reservoirs of knowledge.The "Knowledge Navigator" discussed by Apple's JohnSculley in his book Odyssey, is, in some sense, the perfectmodel for the visualization process. Jim Blinn has used thisprocess for over a decade in attempting to simulate planetaryexploration by modelling Voyager's journey through the solarsystem. Visualization is not new, but its awareness by thegeneral scientific community is. [Wolff R.S. 1988 p.35]

[c] The ideas visualization are easily applied to mapping: Scientists confronted with conceptually difficult processes plotnumbers on graphs to "see" what they mean, often under theassumption that even bad graphs may provide more meaningthan tidy lists of numbers. Normally we need all the insightwe can get, and graphics are closely associated with theintuition that lies behind so much creative inquiry. Thecomputer business increasingly uses pictorial output. Graphicsare used in basic research in engineering, mathematics,physics, and other fields as a means of visualizing complexformulas and models. The map, as a graphic form of symbolicrepresentation, also serves the primary function ofvisualization in scientific research (Figure 30).

It appears that maps (or graphics) are not designed, intended,or well suited for precision work. One should not expectdetailed statistics from mapping. The impact of the map ismore often of greater importance than the information. Mapsserve well the need for a general picture of the nature of adistribution or the relationships between several distributions,at least when the patterns are not too large. [Muehrcke P. 1972p.38]

[d] Most importantly, visualization guides and inspires usto see new questions to ask rather than merely repeat oldanswers:

This elusiveness is not so much a particularity of perception asit is characteristic of cognition in general. The privilege ofobserving everything in relation raises understanding to higherlevels of complexity and validity, but it exposes the observerat the same time to the infinity of possible connections. Itcharges him with the task of distinguishing the pertinentrelations from the impertinent ones and of warily watching the


1982, Tufte E.R. 1990).

Although I have used computers a great deal in this work, I am not

going to concentrate on the mechanics of getting information into the

machine, but how you get it out to people (Prints XI & XII). To

communicate with people you must involve their senses of sight or

hearing, the former transmitting far more information than the latter.

Language, along with music, the most sophisticated use of hearing, is

an excellent means of conveying ideas and thoughts, but cannot

present a large amount of information in a structured form at speed11.

When you look out of the window you can see a great deal in an

instant. The mind has an extremely powerful system for processing

imagery which can instantly analyse a pattern of colours, of light and

shade, and know that these are trees, houses or people out there. How

long would it take to describe all that you can see in words? Yet we

still have to argue, that in the study of societies, there are many things

which cannot be eloquently described in words or succinctly captured

by equations.

This very thesis is only held together by its text. We have come a long

way with our little symbols, which, after all, exist only because they

12

effects things have upon each other. [Arnheim R. 1970 p.62]

11 [a] To put the argument somewhat more technically: Visual displays of information encourage a diversity ofindividual viewer styles and rates of editing, personalizing,reasoning, and understanding. Unlike speech, visual displaysare simultaneously a wideband and a perceiver-controllablechannel. [Tufte E.R. 1990 p.31]

[b] Why does our visual system work so well?: Human visual perception is performed by the most complexstructure of the known universe, the visual cortex, thatcontains at least 1010 neurons, where each neuron in averagecontains 104 synapses (gates). This enigmatic processingnetwork can perform prodigious feats when properly coupledto the visual stimuli. [Papathomas T.V. & Julesz B. 1988p.355]

[c] And how does it operate so quickly?:

Humans can recognize unexpected objects in around 100neuron-firing times. [Plantinga W.H. 1988 p.56]

[d] Our vision has evolved over a long time to become thispowerful:

Average human beings can be beaten at arithmetic by a oneoperation per second machine, in logic problems by 100operations per second, at chess by 10,000 operations persecond, in some narrow "expert systems" areas by a millionoperations. Robotic performances can not yet provide thissame standard of comparison, but a calculation based onretinal processes and their computer visual equivalentssuggests that a billion (109) operations per second are requiredto do the job of the retina, and 10 trillion (1013) to match thebulk of the human brain.

Truly expert human performance may depend on mapping aproblem into structures originally constructed for perceptualand motor tasks — so it can be internally visualized, felt,heard or perhaps smelled and tasted. Such transformationsgive the trillion-operation-per-second engine a purchase onthe problem. The same perceptual-motor structures may alsobe the seat of "common sense," since they probably contain apowerful model of the world — developed to solve themerciless life and death problems of rapidly jumping to theright conclusion from the slightest sensory clues. [Moravec H.1989 p.177]


were easy to scratch with a stick or form quickly with lips and tongue.

Did our ancestors develop the most efficient means of communication,

or did they make do with what was possible? Communication, which

holds a society together, is still developing. We are only beginning to

realize what there is to see.

The spatial structure of British society, which is envisaged in these

pages, is made up of far more than a few large regions which can be

named, and divisions which can be measured. Social structure has a

texture to it, a fine pattern, an elaborate organization, not unlike the

pattern of chaos (Print XIII). Such intricate structures cannot be

captured by writings which say which towns are supposedly faring

worst, or coefficients that tell of a simple widening of the divisions. If

we want to know the how and why of things, the best we can do,

before letting our imaginations take over, is to take a look at what we

are talking about.

We depend on vision, we think visually, we talk in visual idioms and

we dream in pictures, but we cannot easily turn a picture in our mind

into something other people can see. An artist will take days to paint a

13

12 [a] But we may not realise that we have never beentaught how to see:

The lack of visual training in the sciences and technology onthe one hand and the artist's neglect of, or even contempt for,the beautiful and vital task of making the world of factsvisible to the enquiring mind, strikes me, by the way, as amuch more serious ailment of our civilization than the"cultural divide" to which C.P. Snow drew so much publicattention some time ago. He complained that scientists do notread good literature and writers know nothing about science.Perhaps this is so, but the complaint is superficial. It wouldseem that a person is "well rounded" not simply when he has abit of everything but when he applies to everything he doesthe integrated whole of all his mental powers. [Arnheim R.1970 p.307]

[b] Visual skills can, however, be enhanced: Researchers increasingly are becoming aware that people needto be educated graphically in order for them to comprehendoften increasingly complex graphics. It frequently has beensuggested that graphicy is one skill that is generally notsufficiently developed thoughout our educational system asare numeracy, articulacy and literacy (Balchin, 1976). Thisresearch incorporated the concept of learning effects in orderto judge its impact. [Halliday S.M. 1987 p.63]

[c] Researchers may need to learn to use graphics more:

Having established this high-bandwith communication linkfrom the computer's vast computation power to the humanbrain, we are ready to look at ways of translating scientificdata into pictures. We also need to educate scientists to the useof computer graphics. I have known many scientists who didnot believe that mere pictures could help them understandtheir research. So they continued to burn up hours ofsupercomputer time (with over a hundred million calculationsper second) and assumed that they had absorbed the completeresult by studying output numbers. But once scientists beginto use computer graphics, they wonder how they ever gotalong without them. They find those "mere pictures" not onlygive them a firmer understanding of problems and provide ameans of more easily explaining their work to colleagues butquite often open up whole new areas of research throughobservation of some subtle feature in an image. [Prueitt M.L.1987 p.4]

[d] The advantages, once visualization is accepted as amethod, are numerous:

Visualization is often opportunist; that is, an interpreter willnot always have a good idea of exactly which attributes are ofprincipal interest and indeed may often specify conflictingaims. It may also be advantageous to generate initialrepresentations for large quantities of data automatically and


single portrait. Suddenly, just as the last generation was given the

camera, we have received the computer, which can turn a huge

amount of data into pictures — snapshots of our society. In the future

we will be able to speak visually. For now we still have to learn

how12.

1.2 Pictures Over Time

Visual communication was possible in the past, but enormously time

consuming and often limited by poor materials and little information.

These limitations led to restricted experimentation and strongly

established conventions as to the right way to paint. Our first

permanent communications were cave paintings and our first textual

scripts made of pictures. Today the computer window system which

abounds with icons is the modern cave wall (Print XIV); we have

rushed forward to the beginnings of visual communication13 (Peddle J.B.

1910, Riggleman J.R. 1936, Royston E. 1956, 1970, Lockwood A. 1969, Herdeg W. 1974,

Feinberg B.M. & Franklin C.A. 1975, Beniger J.R. 1976, Beniger J.R. & Robyn D.L. 1978).

The first maps were drawn on clay. They were invaluable objects for

the control of territory or the projection of religious truth about the

14

quite independently of analyst interaction. [Robertson P.K.1990 p.121]

13 [a] The subject matter of the earliest maps isinteresting:

Chinese literature tells us that maps were being used in theEast as early as the 7th Century BC, while the earliestsurviving examples of maps are clay tablets found at Nuzi, innorthern Iraq. Believed to be from the period circa 2,300 BC,they show rivers, settlements, land-holdings and hills.[Brannon G. 1989 p.38]

[b] Other forms of graphical display of information aremuch younger than cartography:

Maps have been used for more than 5,000 years whereas mostother forms of graphic information date from the eighteenthcentury — graphs are a surprisingly modern discovery (Tufte,1983). The earliest use of pictures is, of course, long beforethe first map, but perhaps we should exclude pictures from ourdefinition of graphic information: pictures do not share thegeometrical or conceptual structure of maps and graphs.

[Phillips R.J. 1989 p.24]

[c] It is the increased availability of information whichnecessitates new visual solutions:

The early problem of spatial organization grew with theamount of data to be analysed. Multiple measurementsproliferated with the Industrial Revolution in Europe, whichbrought a spate of new measuring devices: the air and waterthermometer (c. 1590), micrometer (1656), weather-clock (c.1660), mercury thermometer (1714), etc. Spatial organizationof multiple measurements was achieved in two competingforms, coordinate systems and tables, which dominatedquantitative graphics in the 17th and 18th centuries ...[Beniger J.R. & Robyn D.L. 1978 p.2]

[d] The popularity of visualization has been cyclic:

In mathematics, it is considered the most flagrant gauchery touse a diagram. "Graphics" is thought to be an inflated title for"mechanical drawing". In fact, all the intrinsically visiblesubjects; geography, graphics, and geometry, are suspected ofbeing really grade school subjects, fit only for brains that are


world. Maps were accumulations of innumerable stories, reams of

parchment and hordes of figures. Spatial information about the world

and its people has always been at the forefront of visualization. As

map-making developed into the art of cartography, rules were

formalized and conventions defined (Peuker T.K. 1972, Friis H.R. 1974, Bertin J.

1978, Howe G.M. 1986c). Cartography is no longer a major discipline or

even an important aspect of geography. Its modern tools can be used

by children (Print XV) and its conventions are being challenged as

stale.

The nineteenth century saw the strongest moves, in science, against

pictures. The graphs, which instruments traced onto paper, were

immediately turned into supposedly more accurate and readable

tables. Diagrams were for people without mathematical imagination.

Nevertheless statistical graphics did germinate in these surroundings.

The graph, bar chart and scatter diagram were invented. These, too,

were formalized, rules for their construction produced, while their

supposed subservience to more advanced methods was made clear.

Now the cycle has come round again, and there is a new breed of

statisticians who see visualization as paramount (Fienberg S.E. 1979, Young

F.W., Kent D.P. & Kuhfeld W.F. 1988, Buja A., Asimov D., Hurley C. & McDonald J.A.

1988, Crawford S.L. & Fall T.C. 1990, Hirsh N. & Brown B.L. 1990).

15

still undergoing biological maturation and whose harmfullymisleading approach will have to be undone later. [Bunge W.1968 pp.31-32]

14 [a] The history of computer graphics is short, buteventful:

Computer graphics started with the display of data onhardcopy plotters and cathode ray tube (CRT) screens soonafter the introduction of computers themselves. It has grownto include the creation, storage, and manipulation of modelsand images of objects. These models come from a diverse andexpanding set of fields, and include physical, mathematical,engineering, architectural, and even conceptual (abstract)structures, natural phenomena, and so on. [Foley J.D., Dam A.van, Feiner S.K. & Hughes J.F. 1990 p.1]

[b] Many milestones mark the way:

The scientific visualization going on today, Rosebush showsus, has been going on for a long time. In 1964 Ed Zajak ofBell Labs, who was a programmer animator, did a satelliteorbiting in space... [Neal M. 1988 p.9]

[c] The discipline is now reconstructing its history: The concept of scientific visualization reaches back intoprehistoric times when a caveman drew a map of his localenvironment on his cave wall. In antiquity, legend tells us thatArchimedes was slain by a Roman soldier while visualizingfigures sketched in the sand. In this century, chemists began tounderstand the structure of matter and satisfied the need tovisualize molecules with wooden and plastic models.Visualizing data and concepts is not new, nor is it computerdependent.

In the computer age, we have progressed through line-printeroutput, contour plots, etc., to more sophisticated techniques.Yet scientific visualization has only emerged as a technologyin the last two or three years. [Rosenblum L.J. 1990 p.209]

[d] And beginning to realise where the future lies:

Structure, however, has been left behind in the race to createmore and more realistic images. While photo-realism is eyecatching, it is not necessarily informative. One of the greatpotentials of computer graphics is to provide a vision of whatwe might not otherwise be able to see in a photograph or real


Computer graphics in the 1960s changed the picture14. Swirling

images were produced from the most simple formulae (Davis P.J. 1974,

Mandelbrot B.B. 1983, Andrews D.F., Fowlkes E.B. & Tukey P.A. 1988). It was

immediately obvious that reading an equation told you little about

what secrets it held. Before computer graphics, people were blind to

the behaviour of relationships they thought they could easily

understand (Print XVI). The programmers then went on to render

reality — creating photographs from numerical descriptions of what

we can already see around us. They now turn their efforts to the

possibilities of rendering abstract worlds.

Visualization grew out of all of this, but a similar philosophy

underlied much of it. Graphics have come in and out of favour in

cycles through time (Pickett R.M. & White B.W. 1966, Baecker R.M. 1973, Neal M.

1988, Nielson G.M. 1989, Anderson G.C. 1989, Voegele K. 1990a). Their resurgences

usually have more to do with taking advantage of new printing

technologies (Figure 1) and the availability of more abundant

information, than a basic understanding of their value. What is

required now is to harness the potential of the computer, that both

provides and renders new information, for a deeper knowledge.

16

life. [Dooley D. & Cohen M.F. 1990 p.307]

15 [a] The technical term visualization was sprung uponthe scientific community in 1987:

Visualization is a method of computing. It transforms thesymbolic into the geometric, enabling researchers to observetheir simulations and computations. Visualization offers amethod of seeing the unseen. It enriches the process ofscientific discovery and fosters profound and unexpectedinsights. In many fields it is already revolutionizing the wayscientists do science. [McCormick B.H. et al. 1987 p.3]

[b] Grand claims have been made of the philosophy:

Computer graphics and image processing are technologies.Visualization, a term used in the industry since the 1987publication of the National Science Foundation reportVisualization in Scientific Computing, represents much morethan that. Visualization is a form of communication that

transcends application and technological boundaries. [DeFantiT.A., Brown M.D. & McCormick B.H. 1989 p.12]

[c] Things have changed very quickly: Images and animations are no longer merely illustrations inscience and engineering — they have become part of thecontent of science and engineering and are influencing howscientists and engineers conduct their daily work. [Foley J.D.,Dam A. van, Feiner S.K. & Hughes J.F. 1990 p.22]

[d] Recognition of this revolution is increasing: Computing imaging is not new, but the term, "scientificvisualization", is justified as an indicator of an important newphase of development and a novel alignment of severalcomputational technologies. [Haber R.B. & McNabb D.A.1990 p.74]


1.3 Beyond Illustration

Visualization is a way of working, a methodology. Not only does it

differ from the use of script

and figures — reading and

calculating to understand

— but also from

conventional graphics

which aim to illustrate.

Illustration is used to

convey a discovery from

one person to another

which was found by other

means. Visualization is the

transformation of numbers

into pictures in order to see

what a mass of figures

could not tell us, let alone

inform others. Visualization

is how discovery is made.

The method is the

message15 (McCormick B.H. et

al. 1987, Prueitt M.L. 1987, Winkler

K.H.A., Chalmers J.W., Hodson

S.W., Woodward P.R. & Zabusky

N.J. 1987, Wolff R.S. 1988, Forer P.,

Poiker T., Penny J. & Deeker G. 1990,

Robertson P.K. 1990, Nielson G.M., Shriver B. & Rosenblum L.J. (eds) 1990, Foley J.D.,

Dam A. van, Feiner S.K. & Hughes J.F. 1990).

17

[e] Its value to geography was recognised ten years ago: Visualization is important, if not essential, in human thought.Visual thinking is not exclusively an artistic talent, but isconstantly used by everyone. It pervades all human activity,from abstract and theoretical to everyday and down-to-earth.Yet development of visual thinking has been immobilized bysociety and education. Even geographers, in spite of theirhistoric association with maps and mapping, fare little better.They seem to have given up on maps at the very time that

other disciplines were discovering the power of graphics anddocumenting the physiological basis of visualization. This isparticularly ironical since the geographic map may well be themost highly developed of the various graphic media that havebeen conceived in response to the need for visualization.Geographers are fortunate to be so closely associated withsuch a powerful, sophisticated tool of thought (somethingpractitioners of other disciplines point out repeatedly). Yetincredible as it seems, geographers have not taken anything


Drawfiles areused to create theillustrations in thisthesis.

A library ofprocedures waswritten specificallyto produce thesefiles.

Drawfiles are asophisticated typeof computer record. The record contains a list of objects,which can themselves be a list of objects.

Object can include relationships (with other objects),information (data from other files) and:

text - of a particular font, size, style and colour;sprites - a pixelmap image (raster graphics);paths - lines, curves andshapes (vector graphics).

In the example above the Greater London "object" hasbeen shrunk. In the drawfile it is tagged with itsidentification as County no.1 and the relevant boundarydate (1981). Making up the group is its perimeter, theriver Thames, and any islands in the river. All aspectsof scaling, appropriate placement and hyphenation ofnames and colouring are automated. Any feature of anobject or group of objects can then be edited -interactively on the screen - as has been done here.

Once a drawfile representing a particular geography hasbeen created, it can be transformed and additionalinformation incorporated. For example, the places couldbe represented by faces instead of polygons; re-colouredand then merged with another drawfile.

Greater

LondonBerkshire

East

EssexHertfordshire

KentSurreyWest

Figure 1: Creating the Graphics

Most visualization research today relies on huge quantities of

numerical information. Before you have such information, you can

only write about what you think is happening. Now you have counted

what is happening, who does what, who has what — how do you

understand it? How should we analyse the information? Statistical

analysis gives you single figures, averages, correlations, parameters of

assumed relationships, probabilities, and so on. They are only of use if

you know exactly what you want, but knowing what questions to ask

is much harder than finding the answers. Social science is not about

defining and testing simple hypotheses; it is about understanding

complex societies.

There are many ways to begin studying society. All involve some

form of ordering, of which the spatial is the most common. Having

projected our figures onto the plane in some way, we can paint

pictures of this ordering and see what patterns emerge, what structure

there is (Print XVII). These patterns usually turn out to show complex

and subtle relationships that tax our mental capabilities to comprehend

18

near to full advantage of their traditional relationship withmaps. [Muehrcke P. 1981 pp.37-38]

16 [a] We need to be careful in deciding what is formingthe patterns we see:

The boundaries between shadings on a choroplethic map tendto dominate the visual impact of the representation, becausesharp visual contrasts occur along these lines. Map-readerstend to assign significance to these boundaries and, as a result,often assume that they designate breaks in the configuration ofthe statistical surface. Since this seems to be the normalreaction among map-users, the map-maker is obliged to usegeneralizations in which there is a c

the visualization of spatial structure...the visualization of spatial social structure thesis...

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