Personal map of 2.5m GPS data points, 3.5 years in the making

Aaron Parecki, co-creator of location platform Geoloqi, has collected his location every few seconds for over three years. He put his data on a map.

Approximately one GPS point was recorded every 2-6 seconds when I was moving, and these images represent about 2.5 million total GPS points. Collectively, they represent a data portrait of my life: everywhere I’ve been and the places I’ve been most frequently. The map is colored by year, so you can see how my footprint changes over the years, depending on where I live.

We’ve seen projects like this a few times before (Hey, Andy, where’s your 2011 map?), but the longevity still surprises me, in a good way. (I think I’ve got this quantified self thing for the masses figured out. Don’t even bother mentioning tracking, self-improvement, or the gadgets. Just show them stuff like this and attach some sentimental value, and there you go.)

[via infosthetics]

6 Comments

  • Very asthetic, indeed. When I compare this with my maps which I drew with a Rotring a couple of years ago …
    And besides being impressive what does it tell us ?
    Displaying data in an asthetic way is one thing – which is very timeconsuming – and what next ?

  • Impressive perseverance indeed, and pretty! I got tired of the self-tracking thing last year and quit. There was only so much to learn from it, and after a while it’s just a chore.

    • So what did you learn ?

      • Meh, not much from the maps themselves. For me it was more about the encouragement to go somewhere I hadn’t been before in order to put a new line on the map, so it was kind of a way to explore new places around town.

  • What about Windows Mobile?

  • Alex: you could try Instamapper.