While preparing for teaching a course in data tracking I was very happy to discover the excellent Unfolding library for making interactive maps in Processing. Unfolding makes it possible to create just about any kind of tile-based mapping application with a minimum of code, simple map drawing typically coming in <20 lines. It's perfect for visualizing FourSquare, OpenPaths, GeoRSS or any other kind of geo-based data. Now if I could only figure out how to control the timing of the map tweening, right now it feels more like jump cuts than smooth pans.

Here are three examples showing a simple map display and two demos using geo data from OpenPaths in CSV format: 20120127_unfolding_map_examples.zip

Update: The lecture notes about infoviz and self-ethnography are online on Scribd, it’s basically the same lecture as two years ago.