R on Visual Cinnamon

A Giant Map of the World

Thu, 21 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I created this very large map of the world that measures 2.85m x 1.5m (roughly 9.5’ x 5’), which takes up nearly one entire wall of my living room. The map is based mostly on the vector and shaded relief data from the Natural Earth and the colored contour areas (height lines) from Amazon Web Services Terrain Tiles. I had the map printed on an ArtFrame (by Art Heroes), which is a textile canvas that is stretched along a black aluminum frame.

Visualizing the Top Contributor Network of Any GitHub Repo

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In this blog I want to show you the design process that went into creating the “Top Contributor Network” visual. Showing the ecosystem and synergy of the other repositories the top contributors of any GitHub repository have worked on.

How it started from a simple network, and became it’s own thing. How it involved endless tweaking, and how it then all broke, before growing into its final form.

You can find the interactive visual here (ps: it’s not really meant for mobile screens) and you can find all of the code and documentation for the visual here.

Charting Our Adventures: How I Created a Personalized Map with R, JavaScript, and more

Mon, 17 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In this blog, I’d like to show you how I created the map below of Senja, Lofoten & Vesterålen in Norway. Using a combination of tools, including the OpenStreetMap API, Amazon Web Services Terrain Tiles, R, d3.js, and JavaScript, I was able to create a unique and personal map that features our hikes, Google location history, and the locations we stayed at during our 5-month trip through Norway in 2022.

Senja, Lofoten & Vesterålen

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I created this map of Senja, Lofoten & Vesterålen to remember the five months I traveled through Norway in 2022. I loved the whole country, but these locations stole my heart. The map uses on data from the OpenStreetMap API and the height lines (contours) from Amazon Web Services Terrain Tiles. To make it more personal, I added several layers of personal geo data to the map as red elements: lines show our hikes, small dots along the road are the Google location history points, diamonds for the locations we stayed overnight, and more. I had the map printed at 50x60cm on fine-art paper and it is now hanging in a prime spot of our hallway.

Exploring the art hidden in π

Sat, 24 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

While browsing online I came across several examples of Martin Krzywinski’s Pi art works and I was inspired to try and do a small project with the digits myself. I wanted to try and create something that wasn’t very informative per se, but hopefully pretty to look at, more like art.

How to create a hexagonal heatmap in R

Wed, 13 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Like I wrote in one of my previous posts on the creation of a “self organizing map” program in R, I really wanted the results of a SOM visualized in a hexagonal heatmap, so I wrote my own piece of code for it.

On the creation of a “self organizing map” program in R

Mon, 22 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been using self organizing maps (or SOM) to analyse client data for more than a year now. In the beginning I tried some commercial software, but I did not like the fact that it was too easy to just randomly click some buttons and a map showed up. I wanted to know what was happening under the hood.

Plotting survival analysis results in R with ggplot2

Sun, 14 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Even though R has been my favorite language to program in since a few months, one thing it is not designed to do is make your plots look anywhere near good. With this I mean that those plots are not the stuff I can just save and put into a client presentation.