Map of Oregon and Washignton

This is a map I made for my map design class.  The Assignment was to create a map that showed some part of the U.S. and used a point, line, and polygon feature provided by the instructor.  The background is an image courtesy of Tom Peterson.   For my map I choice to display features associated with people in the Pacific Northwest.  The features I used were, roads, urban areas, and cities.  I choice to keep my design simple by using red for roads, grey for urban areas and dots for cities.  To indicate the relative size of the urban areas I varied the size of my labels.  I also want to distinguish Interstates from state highways, so I used the standard road shields.  One thing I would like to change about this map is the color and font I used for labeling the cities.  Its hard to read some of the labels over the background.  I would also lighten the background image (when print the background is vary dark). 

Last term I took a class called Map Design and Production.  It was the first class I took that was completely focused on map design.  The teacher was an actual cartography for the BLM, so he gave a lot of insight into making a map geared towards your specific audience.  Up to this point all the GIS classes I took simply had us spit out a map using ArcGIS (with the time and right knowledge you can make a decent map in ArcGIS).  In this design class we used ArcGIS to gather  and analyze the data and then exported the basic GIS map into Adobe illustrator, where we made our final map. Another aspect that made this class interesting was that we focused solely on making maps for print rather then web display.  Two differences between the formats are the way you select colors (RGB for web, CYMK for print)  and print maps are static rather then interactive.  I would be interested in taking a class or learning more about web mapping since we are seeing a large increase in its presence.

Selecting the right colors for your maps can make a huge difference on how they are persevered.   Trying to find the right color can be challenging and take a lot of work.  Luckily my instructor introduced us to a site called color brewer ( http://colorbrewer2.org/ ).  The site gives advice on which colors to use depending on several criteria.  I found the sight helpful, but still had to spend time tweaking the colors so they looked the way I wanted them.    Below is an example of a  map I designed using color brewer.

Transit planning and GIS

 My research for a  term project last year lead me to a lot of new and interesting sites related to transit.  I'd like to highlight one of them.  I would like to look at Jarret Walker's blog  (http://www.humantransit.org/).  Mr. Walker has years of experience working on public transportation and has even written a book on it.  His blog has a ton of general information related to mass transit as well as specific parts dedicated to individual cities.  So far I have only had time to read the Portland Oregon part of his blog.  It has a lot of information and I can only assume his other sections are just as detailed.  I like his blog because it isn't just one or two paragraphs per subject.  He really dives into the material.   I'm sure his blog will be a huge resource for me when it comes to public transit.   

python programming, and more

This term I took a python programing class.  I had done a little programming a few years ago but didn't remember a lot.   Taking this class remind  me  how useful program can be for running automated tasks.  If you have never heard of  python and you do a lot of geoprocessioning  I recommend checking it out.  Here's  link to my programming class webpage http://gisgeek.pdx.edu/wordpress/gis-programming-python/.  There are lots of good links so you can start exploring python.  Python is a very simple programming language and is easy to get started with. 

Taking this class also made me realize how much we are dependent on programing.  Every webpage relies on programing.  The interactive pages require a lot of programing.  Today I read an interesting article on wired.  ( http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/03/facebook-hack/) Some engineers from Facebook have created a new programing language called 'Hack".  A lot of people think this will be the language of the future.  The cool part is that it is open source and has been tested on one of the biggest  platforms there is, Facebook itself.  I haven't had a lot of time to look into it further, but I'm interested to learn more and see how it works. 

A great way to display statistics of San Fransisco crimes

 

 

map designed by Doug McCune

I came across this map on strange maps http://bigthink.com/blogs/strange-maps.  These infographics were created using 2009 crime stats for San Fransisco. It can get so boring looking "heat" maps of crime or boring old graphs.  Doug's approach brings a new look to crime data.  It does a really good job at showing where the hot spots are for crime.  I In general I think 3-d images do a great job at capturing people's attention.  If your interested in finding more unique maps I recommend checking out Strange Maps      

Cool new site

Curiosity of Hand Maps.org http://www.handmaps.org/recent.php?ID=347

 I've been trying to find some good books on cartography (I know the internet is full of useful information, but there is just something about a physical book).  As I was searching for book I came across this site site http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/01/07/must-read-map-books/.  which eventually lead me to Hand Maps http://www.handmaps.org/index.php .  This site has user submitted maps that are hand drawn.  With the so much cartography and map making done using a computer its really refreshing to see some hand drawn maps.  Some are simple sketches of family trips while others are very detailed.  This site has given me some inspiration and I'm thinking of taking the time to make a hand made map. Maybe it'll will be good enough to appear on Hand Maps. 

Google map tutorials

When Google Earth first came out I was in high school.  I though it was so amazing being able to look at anyplace on earth and mark places I’ve been.  Over the last decade they’ve kept adding new features to it.  Beyond Google Earth Google has revolutionized the way we look at and use maps.   In the past I’ve mainly used Google Maps to look up location, but there is so much more you can do.  For example you can create custom maps, look up traffic conditions among other things.  Below is a link to Google maps tutorials.  http://www.google.com/earth/outreach/tutorials/all.html Some of the videos are very useful.  I hope to use some of these new techniques and post  some examples of my work.