Geog Blog

Final Project

2008-12-10T14:02:00.000-08:00

Ha! My final project is finished along with the willpower to accomplish any more schoolwork for the next few weeks. I decided to map the increases and decreases in motorcycle registrations across the U.S. because as a motorcyclist, I'm curious about the growth or decline of the motorcycle industry. Overall, it appears to be growing quite a bit. The only trouble in making the map came from Colorado's motorcycle registration numbers for 2002-2006, which included duplicate numbers of registrations from one year to the next and jumps of almost 100,000 between other years. Since both of these scenarios seem rather unlikely, I decided to substitute the more realistic 1996-2000 data in for Colorado and made note of the switch on the map.

Here are some useful links, should one like to learn more on the subject or just waste some time:

Department of Transportation - Federal Highway Administration
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/

Motorcycle Safety Foundation
http://www.msf-usa.org/

Motorcycle USA
http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/

Visordown
http://www.visordown.com/

DC Sportbikes
http://www.dcsportbikes.net/

Lab 10: Bivariate Map

2008-11-19T15:28:00.000-08:00

Well, it's the last lab of the semester. Since it depicts two data sets on the same map, it pretty much took twice as long to produce. I spent a considerable amount of time choosing which data sets to use, seeing as they must be suitable for each mapping method - in this case choropleth and graduated symbols.

Lab 9: Color Choropleth Map

2008-11-12T09:22:00.001-08:00

When comparing the web version of this map to the printed version, it becomes evident that some colors can appear rather different, depending on which version one happens to be looking at. The blue background on the printed version is noticeably darker than it appears on the computer moniter. This makes the map scales somewhat obscured, although they are not terribly difficult to read. On the other hand, the difference between the class colors is more evident on the printed version, so there are some definite trade offs.

Lab 8: Proportional Symbols

2008-11-10T17:46:00.000-08:00

The task for Lab 8 was to create a proportional symbol map. The symbols in this map are cowbells, representing the number of cattle and calves sold in the state of Maryland in 1997. Small technical problems with Adobe Illustrator came together to make it rather difficult to create a convincing cowbell symbol and provided for a frustrating experience in general. On the other hand, I spent some time working with the dropshadow effect around the map and legend and feel as though the effect gives the map a little something extra.

Map of the Week

2008-11-06T10:08:00.001-08:00

This week's topic was color, so here's a colorful antique map. I like how the value of the colors increases toward the edges of the continent boundaries. The picture also makes for a great wallpaper!

Map of the Week

2008-11-04T07:00:00.000-08:00

Proportional symbol maps like the one here are great for showing degrees of magnitude. In this case, the subject is city size. Although there isn't a legend, one can safely assume that larger circles mean larger cities. The transparent nature of the circles was a nice idea since it helps to avoid obscuring other parts of the map.

Lab 7: Choropleth

2008-10-29T17:50:00.000-07:00

Lab 7 calls for the creation of two choropleth maps, each having a different classification scheme for how the data is depicted. In this case, the original data set (the percent of housing units in each state built in 2005 or later) appeared to suit itself very well to both natural breaks and equal intervals. In fact, it happened that both schemes came out so close that only Utah is changed. It would have been interesting to have more of a difference between the two maps, but I felt as though equal intervals and natural breaks divided the data fairly evenly and made for sensible looking maps.

Choropleth Maps

2008-10-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

Here are three examples of choropleth maps tracing blood type prevalence around the world. One can make some generalizations about blood type concentrations, but it's clear that there are quite a few exceptions. So now, when you see a blood donation service taking place on campus, you might think of these maps!

Lab 6: Dots

2008-10-22T12:00:00.001-07:00

Lab 6 calls for lots and lots of dots (1,631 in my case). The procedure for this map was time consuming but pretty straightforward. Since I was mapping houses, I tried to concentrate the dots around population centers. Because the houses being mapped here were all built before 1940, population statistics for pre-1940s West Virginia would have provided for added accuracy, but I felt that given the time alloted for this lab and the lab's more tutorial purpose, using current city locations would suffice. Lastly, I didn't encounter the technical troubles with Illustrator that plagued my last lab.

Lab 5

2008-10-15T13:59:00.001-07:00

Well, I had some trouble with AI on this one in terms of the boxes around two of the layers, which can be seen as the light gray lines that look as though they don't quite belong. Other than that, creating a map from scratch was neat.

VA, DC, MD Bicycle Paths!

2008-10-06T20:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a neat and handy interactive map of bike trails and lanes all around the DC area: http://mooniker.net/capitalbikeways/ You can also check out things like bike shop locations and reported incidents along bike paths.

Map of the Week

2008-09-28T11:34:00.001-07:00

This week's focus was on type and how to use type effectively in cartography. I thought this map of Tokyo Disneyland provides an example of how different types and fonts can be used to catch the reader's eye while not making things confusing.

Lab 4: Typography

2008-09-26T14:49:00.000-07:00

For this week's lab, I made a duplicate of another map, or rather another map's labels to be precise. This required much attention to detail and quite a bit of fiddling on Adobe Illustrator.

Time Zones

2008-09-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

I got home today and was wondering if it was too late to call about an order I had made from a shop in California. So, I searched for a decent map of U.S. time zones and found this one. The boundaries and colors are easy to distinguish and the labels are done in a manner that allows the time zones to stand out as the primary focus of the map.

Lab 3

2008-09-24T13:19:00.000-07:00

Here are my resulting efforts from lab 3. Compared to the previous lab's map, this may look a bit more like what one would envision as a traditional map, or at least a template for one.

Formula One Maps!

2008-09-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a link that provides you motorsport fans with a tour of this year's Formula 1 circuits: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula_one/circuit_guide/default.stm. Click on the red links on the world map and you'll be provided with a driver commentary while a red dot traces its way through the selected track.

Lab 2

2008-09-17T12:05:00.000-07:00

Here is my map from our second lab exercise, which happens to be the first time I've made anything using Adobe Illustrator. The lines on the map represent various conceptions of the Earth's surface.

2008-09-08T18:56:00.000-07:00

The three additional links I chose may seem like obvious choices for a geography blog, but it is for this very reason that I chose them. The CIA World Factbook is a quick way to get some good information on any country of interest, while the USGS site provides a great wealth of maps and satellite images. Lastly, considering the preponderance of hurricanes over the past few weeks, I figured it couldn't hurt to add the NOAA site so one can track approaching storms.