Final Project Map

Here it is!

Final Project Map In Development

Final Project : Work in Progress (Has only planned units)

Questions:  Color scheme? Fonts?  How to point out major developments? 

Lab 10 Bivariate Maps

Plotting the dots for North Carolina is hard when there are a 100 counties and you have no idea about where any of them are. 

Week 10 Blog Post: Bi variate Maps

This was a really interesting bi variate map not just for the topic it is covering, but the way it used lightness and darkness to convey the accuracy of the test.   It looks quite different from a regular 3x3 choropleth because of the many classes it has, however, the lightness makes it easy to recognize some of the most polar colors.  However, it is a bit difficult to differentiate between the middle values.

https://andrewpwheeler.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/making-value-by-alpha-maps-with-arcmap/

George Mason Shuttle Service Map

This is my attempt at the shuttle map for GIS day.  I know I still need to add a scale, but that shouldn't take too long. But if anyone has any suggestion's that would be great!

Lab 9: West Virginia

Week 9 Blog Post

This was a screen shot from http://demographics.coopercenter.org/DotMap/ of the DC metro area showing the racial make up of the area. While it isn't exactly a static map, since a user can look around the entire US, I found this map really cool to look at.  You can see the vast white space created by the Airport, Manassas Battlefield, and the lower density of the Burke area of Fairfax.  Northern Virginia is pretty diverse while Eastern DC into Maryland have larger proportions of African Americans.  Just a cool map overall!

Lab 8: Isoline Map

Stay indoors for high Smerg Levels!

Term Project Proposal

Term Project Proposal

For my final map I was interested in creating a dot density map for planned housing developments in the Dulles planning subarea of Loudoun County.  I chose this topic since, I've live in the Dulles area of Loudoun County for more than a decade and I have seen the population go from under 10,000 people to close to 60,000 in little over a decade.  There are currently around 19,000 housing units in Dulles as of 2014, as estimated by the Loudoun County Government compared to just over 6,000 in 2004, with over 12,000 to come.

The Dulles area remains one of the fastest growing subreas in Loudoun county and has become the second biggest sub area in terms of population in 2014.  As a result, much of the older rural agricultural infrastructure has struggled to keep up with this growth (I've seen my commute get worse within the past four years- close to 15,000 new neighbors within that time). The county and the state of Virginia has spent over $200 million dollars on just two projects in order to better improve infrastructure of area, with many smaller projects and many more to come.

As a result, I was interested in doing a dot density map reflecting current housing units and the planned housing units.

Here are some examples produced by Loudoun County's GIS department:

Change between 2010 and 2020:

These maps use a dot density style of mapping, but the dots are placed randomly within each zone instead of taking into account the actual density of housing units of each area (The above maps also reflect population- not housing units).  As a result, I would like to tackle that issue by more accurately placing the dots more closely based on actual developments and planned housing units (via the many available developer site plans and existing map images of communities).

For the base map I plan on using a regular Loudoun County base map, but zoomed in on the Dulles region of the county.  For reference I plan on using this planning sub area map to define the region I'll be working with.

The data is publicly available through the Loudoun County Government website with current estimated populations by subareas and planned/approved units by subareas (both from 2014).

http://www.loudoun.gov/index.aspx?nid=3188

http://www.loudoun.gov/index.aspx?nid=3249

The first goal will be to finalize the base map, then to review the pre-existing population centers to place the first layer of housing unit dots.  Afterwards, then the plan is to review major approved projects and their site plans to recognize where the heaviest planned development will be, and then place those on the map.  Finally, style elements will be implemented at the end.

Lab 7: Proportional Symbol Map

A proportional symbol map reflecting the total employment by county (non-agricultural employment) in Maryland.

Week 7 Blog Post: Proportional Symbol

This is an interesting infographic-proportional map showing the amount of carbon released by a countries.  This map is a cool way to almost form a map purely using proportional symbols instead of the regular shapes and forms of countries. 

Lab 6 Blog Post: COLOR!

Even though this is highest JPG quality, there are still visual differences in the quality of the web and the printed version.  The printed version has neat and clean color fill versus the grainy look of the jpg version of this map.  The background fill of the neat line looks slightly different and not as constant in the printed versions (probably due to the quality of the printer).  Most of the colors remain the same, but the lightest color appears slightly darker in print (making it more visually different from white and more pinkish).  The darkest color is also slightly darker in print as well.  Finally, the legend labels are still visible in the printed version unlike this web version that is harder to read.   Perhaps to improve the quality of the web map, I would try out different formatting and perhaps increasing the lightest color and making the most dark color slightly lighter.  

Week 6 Blog Post

A colorful yet simple map detailing the continents of the Earth.
Found on: http://www.thecitrusreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/www.owengatley.jpg

This map I find uses a subtle amount of color to fill in the continents, while using brighter and contrasting colors to detail each of the features unique to the regions.

Lab 5: Classification

LAB 5: Classifying Data

 One using equal interval classification

One using a natural break classification

Week 5 Blog Post!

A Choropleth map representing the percentage of senior citizens between 2014 & 2050.  Really interesting to see the dramatic changes in many countries and their aging populations.

A lot of other cool data maps/infographics can be found on the source website: http://www.helpage.org/global-agewatch/population-ageing-data/population-ageing-map/

A cool map from http://www.zeit.de/feature/mauerfall-das-geteilte-land showing the number of Ronny's on Facebook in Germany.  It has an interesting approach to visualize the differences between the former East and West Germany using equally proportionate dots. 

Lab 4!

Lab 4: Mapping Virginia, Maryland, and Washington D.C.

Week 4 Blog Post!

The Campus Map of the University of Tokyo (Todai).  This was an interesting campus map not only for its international origins, but also because it has an overlay directing students/visitors to particular locations as well as local public transportation routes and destinations around and off campus. 

 

Week 3 Lab: Typography and Accuracy!