PATTRN was developed as a crowd-sourcing software to facilitate ‘real-time’ mapping and analysis of conflict zones.
Activists, researchers and monitors on the ground can upload multimedia information as discrete ‘events’, and then visualise relations between those events, identifying patterns and trends.

The tool enables its users to build a database of events with space and time coordinates, and to add tags, media, and content to these events. Anyone can contribute data, anonymously.

The database can then be explored through an online visualisation platform: while a map provides access to the details of each event, interactive charts and filters enable to reveal patterns across the data. Together, users of PATTRN can thereby create the big picture of an ongoing situation.