Olympic Medals Cartogram
The size of each country’s circle represents how many medals they were awarded for that particular year. Scroll back through each summer games to see how countries fared over time. Click the “by ranking” tab to sort the countries into a list.
The graphic was created using a force-directed graph using a particle system. Countries try to locate themselves near where they are geographically located as well as close to geographically neighboring countries. The circles do not overlap. Flash is a bit too slow to be interactive, so there is a pre-render on our side to determine how each year’s layout will appear.
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8:40 pm
hi lee its will I just wanted to say hi and ask you some questions because my mom was talking to me about making a website
8:55 pm
hi lee I just set up an ichat account so i dont know how but reply to me somehow and tell me how we talk love will
2:37 am
Hi Lee,
I saw this, and the Olympic torches graphic, on the NYTimes and liked them both. Didn’t know you had done. Nice job!
4:17 pm
Can you tell us what software / programs where used to create this Cartogram?
6:55 pm
sure! The cartogram was build using adobe flash. The layout algorithm is written in actionscript. It uses a soft body force directed graph layout method.
12:54 pm
Thanks - Hopefully this will get incorporated into a more affordable and easy to use open source program soon, maybe OpenOffice.Org. Thanks again.
12:12 am
I just checked out the cartogram…It’s almost like a tag cloud!
The really interesting thing was when I was looking back at history, you see USA and Soviet Union with the largest blocks of medals. It is almost obscene how huge their dot was!
And then, as time goes on and we move closer to present, you see that the dots all sort of start evening out.
Seems like we are starting to be on more of a level playing field with other countries.
I guess as others get more developed and we move to a much more global economy, other countries have a better chance.
Really nice work having your cartogram in the NY Times. What a wonderful kudos!
Shaw