NDS: an interactive, web-based system to visualize urban neighborhood dynamics in United States

NDS is an interactive, web-based system, for the visualization of multidimensional neighborhood dynamics across the 50 largest US Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) from 1980 to 2010 (http://neighborhooddynamics.dreamhosters.com). Four different visualization tools are developed: (1) an interactive time slider to show neighborhood classification changes for different years; (2) multiple interactive bar charts for each variables of each neighborhood; (3) an animated neighborhood’s trajectory and sequence cluster on a self-organizing map (SOM) output space; and (4) a synchronized visualization tool showing maps for four time stamps at once. The development of this interactive online platform for visualizing dynamics overcomes many of the challenges associated with communicating changes for multiple variables, across multiple time stamps, and for a large geographic area when relying upon static maps. The system enables users to select and dive into details on particular neighborhoods and explore their changes over time.

邻里动态系统（NDS）是一款交互式网页端系统，用于可视化1980年至2010年间美国50个最大都市区（Metropolitan Statistical Areas，MSAs）的多维邻里动态，其访问网址为http://neighborhooddynamics.dreamhosters.com。该系统开发了四种可视化工具：(1) 交互式时间滑块，用于展示不同年份的邻里分类变化；(2) 针对每个邻里各项变量的多组交互式条形图；(3) 自组织映射（Self-Organizing Map，SOM）输出空间上的动态邻里轨迹与序列聚类可视化；(4) 可同时展示四个时间节点地图的同步可视化工具。本交互式在线可视化平台的研发，攻克了依赖静态地图时，在多时间节点、大地理范围内传递多变量变化信息所面临的诸多挑战。该系统支持用户选定特定邻里并深入查看其细节，探索其随时间推移的变化过程。