FINAL!

Whew, oh this final.  This final's objective was to create from scratch a map of the United States showing both the participation rate and the mean score for either the SAT or the ACT.  I chose to use the SAT because that is what I took however, the data for both was provided.  We were given quite a bit of time to create both the map and our summary.  The summary was not too bad to complete because it was fairly straight forward.  The map on the other hand was more difficult because I felt that I had to reign in my "want to go nuts" in order to create a more professional and polished product.  I can say with complete certainty that this project really utilized the skills that I have learned over this semester in many ways such as projections, data classification, stylistic effects, proportional symbol creation and I'm sure there are some others that I'm forgetting.  I chose to use the choropleth and proportional symbol mapping methods because I felt that both of those were suited to displaying the data required.  I needed to think about many things in the creation of this map such as figure ground distinction, using the usable map space and placement of items.  To create this map I used a combination of ArcMap and Adobe Illustrator.  First I imported the data from a previous lab then chaged the projection because I felt that the Lambert projection had a little more geographical layout than that Alberts.  Once I changed the projection I then imported the table that I created in Excel by cutting out the part of the SAT data PDF that I needed.  This allowed me to directly import the participation rates to create the cloropleth map.  I used ColorBrewer to help me decide on a color scheme to use.  Once I had decided I chose one at random in ArcMap then applied the legend, north arrow, labels and scale bar.  I exported this to Adobe Illustrator and imported the color scheme that I downloaded from ColorBrewer.  Once in AI I needed to edit all of the layers because when you import there are a lot of paths that you don't really need.  After deleting these I was ready to go.  I then changed the color scheme, arranged the map as well as resizing it making sure to include the scale bar because otherwise the scale would be off.  I created the symbols by importing it from the internet and creating a clipping path around the circle itself.  Once the symbol was created I then had to scale them for the data.  I did this by taking the cube root of the SAT mean score which I calculated by adding up the scores then dividing by 3 to get the mean.  Once the cube root was found I then manually scaled them based upon the largest symbol size I wanted.  Once this was done I then placed them on the map along with the state labels.  This is what I ended up with:

Lab 12

Lab 12s objective was to convert our Dot Density map from last lab to a KML file for import into Google Earth.  Google Earth is a very powerful program that contains quite a bit of data about various places on earth.  It allows you to zoom in on specific place as well as create tours of places in 3D that can include quite a bit of information about that specific place.  For me this was an easy lab because I have used Google Earth before and am famililar with the navigation and operation of this program.  The one thing I did learn about Google Earth is that some of the data is inputed by LiDAR imagry which is a very accurate satillite type.  This type of imagry contains a large amount of detail as seen below with the picture of the St. Pete Times Forum, the area located in downtown Tampa.  The fact that you can read the sign on the front as well as see the ads diplayed on the area is absolutely amazing to me.

Lab 11

Oh lab 11 how difficult you were for me!  I really struggled with this lab.  Not with the material, creating a dot density map was fairly straight forward.  Especially when you create one from scratch 5 different times!  Let me tell you, that was quite frustrating!  However, I finally got the map to work, kinda.  What I eventually had to do was take a screenshot of the map with my masking working and then I turned in the .JPG of the broken map.  I tried pretty much everything to get the masking to work but unfortunately it wouldn't work.

Anyway the purpose of this lab was to create a dot density map of south Florida's population.  We were given quite a bit of freedom in the actual creation of the map which was good because it made us use good color schemes in the creation.  We used two layers in this map the Surface Water and the Urban Land.  The best way to create this map was to place dots only in the Urban Land areas.  I chose the colors to emphasize the dots as opposed to the surface water or the interstate system.  The bottom picture is the map with the masking turned on.  This should give you an idea of where the dot densities should have fallen in the actual map.  You can see that the main concentrations are Tampa and Miami which makes sense because those areas are some of the larger cities in Florida.

Lab 10

In this lab the objective was to use proportional flow lines to portray the immigration of people into the United States in 2007.  The usage of the flow lines was pretty basic once you got the hang of using the pen tool which was much easier after watching the Adobe video on the website.  Before that I really had no clue what I was doing.  Also we were introduced into stylizing objects by using the 3-D effects, drop shadow, and inner glow.  I think that drop shadow was my favorite, hence why I used it on all of my flow lines.  I am becoming much more comfortable in using the basic AI tools to do the tasks that we need to do for each map, such as the neatline.  One of the most frustrating parts of this lab for me was changing the color scheme for the U.S. map.  For some reason every time I selected the states and changed the color it would just make the borders go away.  It took me about four times to realize that I had the stroke selected.  Whoops!  After that the rest of the lab went smooth besides playing with the effects.  Playing with the effects was time consuming but fun because it really allowed me to further explore the power of AI.  Below is my final product.

Lab 9

This lab was all about isarithmic mapping. Isarithmic mapping is mostly known in its for as a contour map. It is mainly used when the data set shows a smooth transition between phenomena. This lab we mapped the average annual rainfall for Washington state over the past 30 years, from 1980-2010. We used two different types of maps, the continuous-tone and the hypsometric tint. The continuous tone map uses a gradient color scale to show the change from low to high concentration. The hypsometric tint map, on the other hand, uses a stepping scale much like a chloropleth map. Also the hypsometric tint map uses data classification to break up the phenomena into classes. I prefered this map because I felt that it was easier to see the distinct changes between concentrations. Overall, I liked this lab because the instructions were very laid out and easy to follow. The one thing that I did not like is how ArcMap has the contour lines set up. You have to manually insert the data points at which you want your contours to appear. I feel that with the automation that ArcMap has built into it there should be an option to allow it to figure out the best points for your contours.

Lab 8

In Lab 8 we were introduced into proportional mapping.  This type of map uses a geometric or symbol shape to show the volume of an attribute.  This lab looked at European wine consumption in 2010.  The first map we used only ArcMap to create.  Mine did not turn out all that pretty but the instructions were to leave the default settings.  This caused me to end up with multiple country labels.  This first lab was the one that gave me the most trouble because first the spreadsheet that we needed to import wouldn't allow me to calculate the root of the wine consumption.  We needed to calculate that so we could show proportionally how much each country consumed.  Also, I kept trying to CTRL+Z to undo the action that I just did.  That only erased my layers quite a few times.  It was unbeliveably frustrating for me because I would have to redo the wine root as well as re-add the shape file.  I kept the "hollow" circles because I felt that with the color contrast it was easy to discern the size.  The map below is what I ended up with.

The legend gave me trouble as well.  For some reason I could not get more symbols on the legend to show the actual number proportions.  It was very frustrating.  I am not sure if I was doing something wrong or if I needed to export it into AI to finish that part to make it where I wanted it.  But, the lab said to leave it so I followed directions, this time.

The below map is the second part of the lab.  This map was zoomed in with ArcMap and then immediately exported to AI.  The rest of it was finished in AI.  I actually felt much more comfortable with AI than ArcMap.  This was strange for me because in the beginning it was the opposite way around.  Today I was actually able to get AI to do what I wanted.  For example, the black border, I would have never attempted to do because it hid the north arrow and the scale bar.  It took me a second to figure out the scale bar because at first I was only able to get the numbers to be white.  After a while I realized that I needed to change both of the colors to white and then it worked!  I am becoming much more comfortable with AI and I like that because of how powerful of a tool it is.

Lab 7

In lab 7 we learned about Choropleth maps which are used to portray many different things such as population change or land use.  In this lab we looked at the US population change from 1990-2000.  The first map we created was looking at the specific state percentage change. Below is the example I created.  I chose this color scheme because I felt that it best represented the division between the 5 classes.  For Alaska and Hawaii we were asked to move and resize them but if we resized without the scale bar we were asked to put "Not to Scale" near them.  I attempted to use the scale resizing which admittedly did not work all that well.  In the second map I used the not to scale and I believe that it turned out much better.  The second map is the US population change by division.  I found the second map to be much easier to complete, probably because I had already done most of the work.  I really struggled with the first map and this lab was by far the hardest lab we have done.

Lab 6

Data Classification, it is quite a tricky thing!  This lab had us examine a couple different ways to classify data sets.  We used the natural break or Jenks, standard deviation, quantile, and equal interval.  There are quite a few subtle differences between the map types.  I preferred the natural break map because of the legend distribution.  Also, I like that graduated color scale the best.

Four different data classification schemes

 The map shown below was my favorite, it is enlarged so you can see the details better.

Larger natural break map

Overall, this lab went very smoothly because it was fairly straight forward to change the classification scheme and color scheme.  I am becoming much more comfortable in working with ArcMap which is a good thing.  Hopefully I will continue gain an understanding so that eventually I will be able to perform tasks using it without looking at instructions!

Lab 5

This weeks lab was mainly lead by ESRI who is one of the main leaders of GIS software in the entire business.  They have many different products to include the one we used this week, ArcMap.  ArcMap is an extremely powerful tool that allows you to do many different things from creating maps to exploring spatial statistics, which is what we did this week.  This weeks lab was all about the relationship of points to each other.  We took a training about spatial statistics lead by ESRI, it consisted of 5 modules each with an activity to familiarize us to the tools that you can use in ArcMap.  We started with a map of temperature stations in Europe and changed it into what you see below:

 As you can see, I changed it quite a bit from the standard map with just grey points on it.  The green polygon in the center is the mean center which measures the average center based upon the mean.  The black cross is the median center which is just the middle location based upon the number of stations.  The shading of points is the temperature ranging from green being the coolest with red being the warmest.

 The above figure is the trend analysis that ArcMap allows you to do.  The reason I included it is because I found it way to neat not too.  I like the fact that is is a 3-D representation of the data points from the map.  You had to play around a little with the line of best fit because it uses a polynomial that you change the order of to find the line of best fit.  

The above figure is an example of the histogram feature in ArcMap.  The blue slected line is an outlier from the map.  By clicking on the outlier it highlighted the stations on the map to allow you to see what the cause of it being an oulier was.  For example, when I clicked on the low outlier of roughly 9 degrees, I found that the station was on a mountain top in Italy so the data wasn't wrong just had conditions not represented by the others.  

One problem I had this week was trying to add a scale bar.  It should have been simple, just click insert and choose the scale bar insert.  For some reason on my ArcMap it was greyed out.  I tried every layer and even adding other layers to place the scale bar in.  I eventually just gave up and said the map was not to scale, which wasn't wrong, just not following the directions.  

Overall I liked this lab because it gave us directed practice with ArcMap which is a very overwhelming tool if you just mess around with it because the terminology is very different and not like anything else I've used.  Also, we got to use AI more which is always welcome because I found that this week, I didn't have to resort to Googling to figure out what I needed to do.  This is a good sign because I am becoming more comfortable with the tools of GIS.

Lab 4

In lab 4 we were given a blank map of Marathon FL and asked to label it using the Typography tool in Adobe Illustrator.  There were 17 places that we needed to label, they ranged from islands to the country club.  Other than that we were given free range to lable or symbolize as we saw fit.  I added a couple things to the map other than the text, they were: the blue background, the border,legend, legend background, and the North arrow.  The reason I chose the blue background is because Marathon is an island and I felt it needed to be represented as such.  Keeping with the island theme I decided to add the border to go with the water and the burlap background for the legend because islands used to have goods brought in using burlap sacks.  Below is the map that I ended up with.

Lab 4 Map: Florida Keys

Lab 3



Lab 3 map production

 In lab 3 we were given a map of the United States, Florida, and South Florida.  The legend and north arrow were given as well.  The map of South Florida depeicted the Hispanic percentage of each county and was colored for each category with no specific theme.  The maps were inappropriately sized for what the concentration of the map was supposed to be.  I resized all of the maps as well as rearranged the location of them.  I also felt that the legend was on the small side so I enlarged that as well as relocated it to it's current position.  I used a really interesting website called ColorBrewer to create the shading scale for the counties that I applied instead of the one given.  The inset maps did not have the rectangles to denote the areas of detail.  I feel that the background color helps remove the eye from the inset maps, the reason that I chose to do this is because they are not the main purpose of this map.  I struggled with finding the neatline because I thought it was already given, however, with guidance from my classmates I got it figured out.  Overall, I really enjoyed this lab because any chance to work with Adobe Illustrater is welcome because of the power it offers and it helps make me more familiar with it.

Lab 2

Lab 2 was our introduction to Adobe Illustrater otherwise known as AI.  AI is an extremely powerful tool that is used after a map has been created in ArcGIS to do finishing touches as well as add other elements to a map.  For this lab we exported an ArcGIS file to an AI file which allowed us to tranfer it from ArcGIS to AI.  Once in AI we opened the file which consisted of the North arrow, the Legend, the Scale, and the map of Florida Cities.  I added the text as well as the background.  The objective of this lab was for us to become familiar with the power as well as some of the more common tools found in AI.  Everything in AI is grouped into layers which we had to edit in order to make the shapes, such as all of the parts of the legend, stay together and allow movement of the shapes simultaneously.  This was one of the harder topics for me to grasp because when I moved some shapes they disappered.  But undoing the action brought them back so I repeated this until I got the shapes situated how I wanted.  The only reason I added color to the text and the background is so I was more familiar with the color tool.  One interesting thing I found was that you needed to link the scale and the map because you can't create scales in AI so it was created in ArcGIS.  If you were to mess with the scale in AI it would become not a true scale.  So linking the map and scale is necessary especially if you need to change the size of the map itself.  By changing the map size it would also change the scale size proportionally.  Overall this lab took me from no experience with AI to being fairly comfortable in its operation.  Although, I am 100% sure that AI has way more power than I even know about.

Lab 1

In Module 1 we had to do the following:

• Find an example of a well designed map
• Explain why it is a well designed map using 2-3 mapping principles
• Find an example of a poorly designed map
• Explain why it is a poorly designed map using 2-3 mapping priniples

The following is what I found:

1.    Example of a well-designed map.

2.    One paragraph critique of your well-designed map—critique must be supported with 2-3 map design principles.

This map uses a very well thought out color scheme, the colors are well spaced apart before they are used again.  It makes it very easy to distinguish the borders between the countries.  The labeling of the countries is a very readable font and the labels are in appropriate places as to not interfere with other countries.  The message is conveyed without the need for a title or a legend.  It is obviously a map of the continents when they were formed in Pangaea using current country labels.  I believe that you could show this map to anyone who has a basic knowledge of the continents of the Earth and even if they couldn’t read English they would be able to figure out what the message of the map is. 

3.    Example of a poorly-designed map. 

    

4.    One paragraph critique of your poorly-designed map—critique must be supported with 2-3 map design principles.

There are many different problems with this map.  The first noticeable problem is with the legend.  The legend uses different sized circles to represent the population density of certain cities.  However, the author forgot to include the units when designing the legend so the reader has no clue what the actual numbers represent.  Secondly, the text used to label the cities is a good font because it is easy to read, nevertheless, the text should have been placed within the city instead of scattered randomly around the circles.  This shows poor map planning.  Also the text sometimes runs into the border of the circles which makes some of the text difficult to read.  Thirdly one of the biggest problems (pun intended) is the circles are too large because they cover too much of the actual map which makes the map very difficult to find certain cities.  Finally, where did the data come from?  There is no source notated so therefore, the reader has no clue what the validity of the data is.

Introduction

Hey Y'all, my name is Ben Powell and I am a Oceanography major just starting the GIS Certificate.  I hope that by obtaining the GIS Certificate it will set me apart within my field and the job market.  Currently I am in the Navy and will be departing active duty February 23rd of 2015 and I am counting down the days!  I have been stationed in Pensacola since November of 2009 and will have spent my whole career here in Pensacola.  It has been a very good place to be stationed because without being here I never would have rediscovered my passion for all things ocean.  I do networking for the Navy so I am fairly technical when it comes to computer things and am hoping that by using GIS it will allow me to blend Oceanography with computers.