Welcome to Methods 3, Lecture 2

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Methods 3

(review)

Where is -73.99, 40.71?

Let's talk about our mental maps

How was drawing your map?

Let's talk about our maps in groups

mental maps recap

Cartographic design & conventions

think about:

scale
hierarchy
color
symbology

scale

hierarchy

"Important things must look important, and the most important thing should look the most important."

Understanding Different Geographies

color

Think about what the colors you are using mean to the viewer.

Use contrast to your advantage.

symbology

source

Looking at the previous map, let's apply our cartographic concepts

in-class exercise

source

hierarchy

source

color

source

Color Brewer

source

avoid the "island effect"

source

what you include is significant

what you include is significant...or will be interpreted as significant

same with what you exclude

source

let's start to apply what we've talked about in QGIS

in-class exercises, styling with QGIS

looking at features, attributes, and values

identify features

the identified feature's attributes and values appear on the right

right-click, open attribute table

all attributes and values for all features in the layer

we'll be using layers' attributes more next week

shapefiles

shapefiles are very common

shapefiles have some annoying properties

1. column names limited to ten characters

how do you pronounce "C_DIG2DESC"?

2. multiple files make up a shapefile

3. one geometry type per shapefile

despite it all, shapefiles are still by far the most common spatial data format

Projections and coordinate reference systems (CRS)

we'll use projection and CRS interchangeably

projection and CRS

how you determine where coordinates actually are on the earth

mapschool.io

source

but what if you want to turn those coordinates into something that works on a 2d plane (like paper)?

source

projections mainly distort

area (equivalence)
shape (conformity)
distance

mercator puzzle

source

usually you will pick a projection for your project to make your data look good

to do this, change your project's projection

not sure which projection to use?

search in qgis

consider using projestions

source

let's use projections in QGIS

in-class exercises, projections

for next time:

Make a small scale (zoomed out) map of a region in the world

for next time:

Make a small scale (zoomed out) map of a region in the world
Make a large scale (zoomed in) map of a part of NYC