220a HW 1: Data Sonification
Bicycle Ride Sonification
This sonification maps elevation and latitude data collected from the iPhone app "Runkeeper" for a bicycle ride in Hershey, PA on July 26, 2013. The most crucial mapping is that of elevation to pitch, since that is the most readily accessible parameter. Latitude is also mapped to the pitch of a second oscillator at a lower pitch level, even though this mapping is not as intuitive. Whereas elevation and pitch are both semantically described as going up and down, x-y coordinate systems are not. In this case, The latitude is mapped to pitch to demonstrate that elevation and latitude are not correlated, and do not follow similar trajectories. Although longitude data was also collected, it is not sonified to make the other data sets more easily differentiable.
At the beginning of the data set, three string-like sounds are heard that present temperature, wind-speed, humidity and dew-point data. This information is encoded in various aspects of the string's production (e.g., bow pressure, bow speed, and bow position, and pitch), although, without a reference point, this data is not presented in a useful fashion and simply serves as counterpoint to the elevation and latitude data sets. The weather data was retrieved from www.wunderground.com's historical weather data for Hershey, PA on July 26, 2013. All three data sets are played at the begining, and following that, the elevation data is repeated without any accompaniment.
Were this data set to be resonified, a more sensible data mapping would be to associate latitude and longitude to pan positioning for a surround sound system and let elevation take a more prominent role as the only pitched data. Additionally, the time delta between each elevation, latitude, and longitude sample is not linear, and that should be taken into account. Below, you can listen to this sonification, and download the data sets and Chuck program files.
The top figure shows the elevation data, the bottom latitude and longitude.
By: Elliot Kermit-Canfield | Autumn 2013