Todd Vanderlin » boston

A Day in the Life of the MBTA

Todd Vanderlin — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:14:29 +0000

Description

This project was a collaboration between Ryan Habbyshaw, Brad Simpson, and Todd Vanderlin. We began the project seven days ago when we learned of the competition and developed it from initial ideas to the final foldable posters within the week. Below is a brief description of the process of parsing, sorting, visualizing, and composing the final posters.

The subway data from August 12, 2009 was parsed in openFrameworks and Matlab using custom applications. Statistical analysis was performed in Matlab for subway loading (temporal and geographical including the entire MBTA, individual lines, and individual stations), rate of subway activity, and associated data. openFrameworks was used to generate the central visualizations for the project. Programs were written to interpret data that was processed into several arrangements to emphasize different trends within the data. Linear charts were used to display the activity of stations on a given line to show the geographic relation of activity throughout the course of the day. Circular 24-hour clocks for individual lines and stations were made in order to see the relative activity throughout the day. Pie charts were used to visualize rush hour commutes on each line, showing the contrast of activity during morning and evening rush hours. Histograms were used to show the breakdown of daily activity in a linear fashion. Layouts were done in Illustrator and visualizations were combined in order to create the five individual MBTA line posters and overall MBTA poster. Individual print posters are 33in x 23 in.

Photos

All Lines over 24 hours.

Built around a 24 hour clock each ring is a train station the thickness of the line represent the amount of people on the train at that time.

Orange Line

Red Line

Green Line

Blue Line

Silver Line

More photos here

Credits:

Todd Vanderlin
Ryan Habbyshaw
Brad Simpson

Tara Donovan

Todd Vanderlin — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:40:46 +0000

Dani and I went to a new show at the ICA, Tara Donovan. It was really an amazing show I would love to see the process on how the pieces are built. It made you so inspired to go out and make something. If you are in the area you really should go and see it. more photos here.

David Sedaris in Boston

Todd Vanderlin — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 01:57:37 +0000

Dani surprised me with tickets to the Davis Sedaris reading. I love his books, listening to him was unreal. I wish that I could tell stories like this man

The Vision Show

Todd Vanderlin — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 02:01:11 +0000

The Vision Show was in Boston this week. What an interesting conference, most people were there to find the latest in machine vision solutions. We were there to find the best hardware solutions for our tables and pieces, Ohh man we did! People were so helpful to figure out what we could use in our work. Imagine Source taught us a ton and evan gave us a free camera. Can’t wait to try out some of the things we found.

This is the camera that Imagine Source gave us. It is unreal, 1024 x 768 resolution capturing at a solid 30 fps.

The had some funky face tracking set up. haha Check out all the photos from the show here buy cialis buy cialis buy levitra buy levitra buy propecia buy propecia buy soma buy soma buy levitra buy cialis buy propecia buy levitra buy soma buy cialis buy propecia buy levitra buy soma buy cialis buy levitra buy propecia buy soma

Boston Business Journal

Todd Vanderlin — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:31:32 +0000

Arnold R&D Lab featured in Boston Business Journal.

Critical Mass

Todd Vanderlin — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 18:59:40 +0000

Rode in my first Critical Mass in Boston. Man is it ever different from NYC. New York’s Critical Mass last for about 10 minutes before the cops break it up. We rode all over Boston into Cambridge for about a hour, at one point had a police escort. Funny how things work out.

IED or a LED

Todd Vanderlin — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:18:30 +0000

Well I guess I need to tell the full story since everyone is asking. I was out in South Boston with my friend Ryan. We went to ironically a Graffiti art show that night. After the show we left and were walking around looking for a bar. We walked down the stairs of a bridge near Lucky’s Lounge. When we got under the bridge at street level we looked up and saw the glowing LED Adult Swim Ad. Right off the bat we thought that it was LED Throwies developed by the Graffiti Research Lab. I had to go up there and take a look.

I am currently enrolled at Parsons School of Design in NYC. I took a class called Geek Graffiti a couple of semester ago. In this class we worked in conjunction with the GRL to create technologies for urban communication. I was very familiar with the technology and LED art, so I had an idea what this was. By no means was I scared or thought was a bomb.

A couple of people outside the bar saw me climb the bridge and grab the LED Ad. People around said that they liked the Ad. “It has been up for a couple of weeks, its nice. It turns on at night.” They even mentioned some artist that they thought it was. By no means were these people scared or threatened by the LED Ad.

The Ad was far out on the bridge so I had a hard time getting to it. It was attached with magnets and hard to get off. I told Ryan to catch it but he missed and it broke. We brought it back to his place and started to dissecting it, I wanted to see how the circuit worked. After some testing I found out the construction of it.

The LEDS are attached to a circuit that takes an average level of the light using a photo resistor. Based on the level of light the LEDs will fade on or off. It is powered by 4 D batteries. The Ad life is about 2 – 3 weeks.

Ryan and I documenting the constriction of the piece and posted it to Make Blog and Flickr. This was about two weeks ago. The response was good. A little after this the creator contacted me and said:

“I am glad you got one of the adult swim signs, there are other’s out there as well so keep looking up. We were hoping that people would take them.” After this the story was over, well until the other day in Boston.

After speaking to many reporters I have to say the whole situation is getting out of hand. I respect the police and authorities for acting on the bomb scare. The bomb squad needed to sit back and realize what the Ad was. The word terrorist or bomb should never have been released to the public unless they were certain.

Take a look at this photo and this photo, The bomb squad should have been able to figure this out, before it got out of hand.

I didn’t do it!

Todd Vanderlin — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 01:08:29 +0000

So today was crazy. The Adult Swim Ads I stole made Boston come to a halt. I spoke to every newspaper and station in Boston. I just want to say that I did not do it. For a good explanation on whats going on check out the boing boing post

Siggraph 2006

Todd Vanderlin — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 20:05:08 +0000

This was my first time at Siggraph. I saw some of the most amazing new forms of technology. The obvious theme of the event was multi-touch tables, this is really going to be the future. Its exciting to see what new interfaces will be built with multiple inputs in consideration.

Jeff Han showed off his magic all over Siggraph. The Multi-Touch Interface stole the show. Many of his works were using his research in LED touch sensors, this technology is amazing. It was so inspiring to see all the work and ideas. I put some photos on flickr.

A DMB Fenway Weekend

Todd Vanderlin — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 05:20:28 +0000

An unbelievable weekend at Fenway, Dave played two amazing nights. The Quad came together and showed the man some support. Night one was unreal Last Stop blew me away. Night two Steve said it best “This is where we are supposed to sit”. I was mesmerized by Boyd’s performance during Grace is Gone. I will never forget this weekend. Flickr Set

See all the photos from the weekend.

Hot Dogs and Gerald’s Birthday

Todd Vanderlin — Tue, 10 May 2005 12:53:01 +0000

Gerald’s Birthday fun day, early lunch was fantastic. If you have not been to Bean Town Dogs yet, GO. They have awesome dogs, get the chili dog.

Happy Birthday Gerald!!!

beantowndogs.com

Cyber Arts Day

Todd Vanderlin — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 20:24:06 +0000

Beautiful weather and a great day. Ryan and I went to see as much of the Cyber Arts Festival as we could in one day. We saw the yellow arrows exhibit, and got some yellow arrows for are own. After seeing the exhibit, we found a bunch of arrows around town and texted them, so cool. We put some of our own up to spread the Yellow Arrows.

Mega Man Yellow Arrow.

Charles River Yellow Arrow

Genzyme building Yellow Arrow

Hatch Shell Yellow Arrow

The Cyber Arts at Kenddal is fantastic, there are tons of really great exhibits there. You need to go down and take a look.

The end of the day.

Ryan found a treasure map.

Yo Yo People and a great day

Todd Vanderlin — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 01:48:26 +0000

Awesome day. It was the first really nice sunny day in the city, everyone was outside. Oh-course we had to go out (Ryan, Hue, and I). We saw and did a ton, everything from yo-yo people to a bull dog gathering. The yo-yo people were unreal, so funny. yoyoshow.com

O.A.R – B.U Concert

Todd Vanderlin — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 20:52:15 +0000

O.A.R at Aggnanis Arena, Boston University. This show was so amazing, good crowd good music and a hell of a good time.
Over 7000 people – word on the street the biggest yet.

Set List:
Ladanday Mr Brown Toy Store About An Hour Ago Get Away Conquering Fools		Black Rock Poker Missing Pieces I Feel Home Lay Down Sunday Bloody Sunday		Nasim Joon Hey Girl Delicate Few Encore: Hey Jude

This last photo is Ari Hest, Stephen Kellogg, and O.A.R singing “Hey Jude”.

See all the photos here

Wallpapers:
Marc Roberge Alone 1024 x 768