Maine Map Review: Important Cartography Concepts

1. Geography 59 May 31, 2007 Administrative stuff Maine Map Review: Some Important Concepts Shaded-relief maps, Proportional Symbol Maps, Review: Choropleth Maps Review: Projections

2. Remaining classes – Geog 59 • May 31st : More maps, Review trouble areas + Maine map critique. Review Projections and Lab 5 (Projections) • June 7th : Review terminology and objectives of the course + Map critique exercise (in-class)

3. Remaining classes – cont'd • June 14th : Read topographic maps, and review important rules that must be followed in your final project. Extra Credit #2 DUE (10 points) • June 21st : Current topics in Cartography + Any early final project presentations. • June 28th : Final Projects

4. Maine Map • The maps looked good • Key issues: • Rules of type placement • Type convention • Element placement • Element balance

5. Maine – The rules of type placement • K & W, page 235 only hints at rules • Monmonier hardly touches on it • What are the RULES!??!?! • They were mentioned in class and are in the slides from May 10th

6. Type placement: Point features

7. Type placement: Line Features • Some ambiguity • Generally, use repetition • Sometimes spreading out the text slightly will cover needs of the map • Abbreviation is ok for rivers

8. Labels on line features • Avoid upside-down type • Avoid stretching out too much • Place text from bottom-to-top, but first try to place horizontally to ease reading These are good practices

9. Map Elements • Achieve “harmony” in your map by: • Looking for big empty white space(s) – how can you move elements around to fill that space? • Being bold about moving around elements to places you might not think are best • Align objects whenever possible. Create guides to align elements or use alignment tools.

10. More Maps! Moving on....

11. More Maps – Topography • Shaded Relief Maps • Presumes an oblique light source • Digital Elevation Models (DEM's) are the main component needed to produce these maps • ArcMap has good shaded-relief map production capability

12. More Maps - Topography • Contour maps • Can be used to generate surfaces in ArcMap (interpolation) • Methods must be understood

13. Review: Choropleth Maps • Good maps for showing changes, percentages, demographics • Main task is data classification • Color scheme is important too

14. Data-based maps: Proportional Symbols • Data may be standardized, or may not be standardized • ArcMap can produce on-the-fly • Overlap may occur, though no rules exist to manage it

15. Dasymetric Maps • Dasymetric maps are based on standardized data and use area as the mapping unit • Takes changing densities into consideration – better visualization of diffusive processes

16. Dot Maps • Use to show point events in space – point feature representation • Use raw data to produce dot maps • GIS products do not commonly produce dot mapsinto consideration

17. And last but not least... Projections!

18. Review: Projections See the guide on the website – it is based on a lot of detail, but ultimately practitioners use 1-3 projections over and over. Today's lab exercise is meant to illustrate ArcMap's projection capabilities.

19. Decimal Degrees • The basic unit of latitude and longitude is the degree (°) • One degree covers a large area. They are most common on GPS units and topographic maps.

20. Decimal degrees are... • Used in many electronic mapping applications. • Often used (not always) to define a single point in space • Sometimes in need conversion to Degrees, Minutes, Seconds • AND – (important for lab #5) • 1 degree is about 69 miles

21. Latitude, Longitude + Minutes + Seconds • Each degree is subdivided into 60 minutes('). Each minute is divided into 60 seconds('') • Express as: • lat or long • minutes • seconds Quadrangle divisions - Wisconsin

22. End of lecture – May 31st