For their data visualization challenge, bike-sharing service Hubway provided data on every trip ever taken using their bikes - over half a million in all - to be used to create interesting and informative graphics.
I modeled a miniature, stylized version of Boston to serve as the backdrop for Hubway's transit data, collapsed a year's worth of rides into a single day, and then rendered stills of traffic at different hours. While the data itself illustrates high-traffic areas and frequently visited stations, I also wanted the wooden landmarks to suggest that there is a tangible aspect of information that is easily manipulated and played with digitally.
To produce the scene, I took every fiftieth trip (roughly 11,000 in all), and using scripts, mapped and animated them in Blender. An animation of the data is visible below.