Visualizing Multi-Temporal Data with Time Manager

Notice

This tool is now out of date refer to Visualizing Multi-Temporal Data with Temporal Controller for up to date Multi-Temporal Visualization tool

Introduction

In a distant universe, 500 milliseconds ago, you embarked on a mission of temporal exploration and spatial pattern analysis. Your task is to map and visualize the occurrences of emergencies in the City of Seattle within your selected timeframe from the year 2020. You will learn to use Time Manager, a plugin for QGIS, so you may conduct spatial analysis at any point in time. Your analyses will be an option of the following: weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly emergency calls. The analyses you will conduct are:

1. "points in polygon" to probe the amount of incidents in a given neighbourhood

2. "near neighbourhood analysis" to gauge the average of the distance between incidents

3. "basic statistics" such as the mean, median, min, max and the range of incidents in a given time.

Introduction to Time Manager

Time Manager is a plugin of QGIS that allows for surfing through temporal geospatial data. It allows for visualization and spatial analysis simultaneously.

Introduction to City of Seattle Real-Time 911 Emergency Calls

As per the title, the data you will be using are close to real time, as they are updated every 10 minutes; they comprise all the emergency calls made to the city's various emergency departments and were taken from the 01-01-2020 to 06-10-2020.

Estimated Time to Complete

20 minutes at minimum and 40 to 60 minutes at maximum (dependent on your hardware, software, internet connection/speed and distractions).

Requirements

Windows/Macintosh/Linux Compatible

QGIS (3.10 was the latest stable release when this document was last updated)

Installing Time Manager

Installing Plugin

Click "Plugins" a drop down menu should show up
Click "Manage and Install Plugins..." a menu should pop up
Click "Install from zip"
Download zip plugin from here
Click "Install Plugin" and wait for confirmation of install.
Click "Close" to exit.

Enabling Plugin

Click "Plugins" on the toolbar. A drop down menu will appear.
Click "Manage and Install Plugins..."
Search "TimeManager"
Enable "TimeManager"
Click "OK" to exit.

Getting the data

Getting emergency calls data

Proceed to this Github link which includes a zip containing all 911 calls for the first 10 months of 2020 in Seattle
Press download and save the zip file in an appropriate location

Getting Seattle neighbourhood data

Proceed to the Seattle geoData website and download the City Clerk neighbourhood Shapefile
Save the file in the same location as the emergency calls file

Importing Data

Importing a Vector Polyline/Polygon to QGIS

Start QGIS and click "Layer" on the toolbar A dropdown menu will appear.
Click "Add Vector Layer".
Browse to the location of the files that you downloaded and select the "2020 Emergency Calls Seattle.shp" and press add
Repeat the same step for the "City_Clerk_Neighborhoods.shp" to add it
Ensure that they are in your Layers subsection on the main page of QGIS

Time Manager

Enabling User Interface

Time Manager should appear under "Plugins" drop down menu.
If not, right click on the toolbar, drop down menu will appear; scroll down to Time Manager and check.
Time Manger should now be at the bottom of your screen.

Importing a Single Dataset to Time Manager

Follow the following steps look at the image for reference
1: Press Plugin and ensure that visibility is enabled for the Time Manager plugin
2: The Manager should now be visible at the bottom of the page, press on the settings button
3: Press on add layer on the popup menu
4: Make sure the layer is "2020 Emergency Calls Seattle" and the start time is set to "date_datet" and press "Ok" to finish