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Great story in the New York Times

In case you missed it there was a great story in the New York Times on Tuesday in regards to the use of GIS in historical analysis. The article, “Digital Maps are Giving Scholars the Historical Lay of the Land” , by Patricia Cohen, discusses the evolution of the spatial humanities and historical GIS/geography, which are growing disciplines in the humanities at colleges and universities around the country.

The article provides a nice overview of how historians, archaeologists, and other non-geographers have embraced spatial analysis and GIS in their research.  I think this is a great article on a trend in the humanities that has been growing for years.  I remember as an undergrad ten years ago developing GIS tools to visualize historical settings.  In grad school I routinely helped non-geographers develop spatial analysis methodologies and visualization techniques to process and analyze historical GIS data.  Much of that work ended up in scholarly publications.  The spatial component really gave the authors an edge over other papers at that time.

So, if you get a few minutes check the article out.  Anytime that GIS gets mentioned in the New York Times is great for our field!

A couple of notes from the article:

  • The author references www.gis.com.  I’m sure the marketing department at Esri liked the link.
  • The article links to David Rumsey’s site.  If you are a map junkie like myself you will love this site.  An amazing map collection.  This site has really influenced the development of online map libraries around the world.
  • I wonder if the growth of GIS and spatial analysis in the humanities (which has been happening for a number of years) has increased enrollment and/or developed programs in GIS and geography at schools where the spatial humanities are strong.  The AAG should get on this.
  • Does anyone remember the digital landscape history of Manhattan that was put together a couple of years ago?  The project gained some press and buzz when it came out.  I’m surprised this article didn’t mention it.  Oh well…
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It’s MAGIC!

If you are a New England based geospatial professional you have probably visited or downloaded data from the Map and Geographic Information Center (MAGIC) at the University of Connecticut’s Homer Babbidge Library.   MAGIC just recently announced their plans for the summer and I am looking forward to seeing what data and tools they roll out next.  MAGIC was one of the first map libraries to offer GIS data over the web and since it has always been a place of innovation.

I was fortunate to have worked at MAGIC from the fall of 2004 through the spring of 2009.  As a grad student I was able to  work on a number of really interesting projects that expanded my technical skills more than any class ever could (I was one of the last people at MAGIC to program in Perl:( ).  Many GIS professionals in New England and beyond can trace their roots back to MAGIC, whether it was working for Pat, Bill, Sarah, or Michael.

So, if you have downloaded there data, copied their mash-up code, or ever browsed their collection of historical maps on Flickr, send them an email and tell them they are doing a heck of a job!

 

 

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Boston Bruins Live Tweets Map

With the Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since when everybody in hockey had mullets, I thought I would take a look at what the geographic reaction was to this series on Twitter.   With today’s pivotal game five and the series tied at 2-2 (after the Bruins gave up a three goal lead!) the series returns Boston and the Bruins need a win.

I am interested in the amount of buzz or reaction in the two competing cities, mainly do tweeters in Tampa even care about the Lightining, even though they won a Stanley Cup in 2004?    The buzz and excitement in Boston has been pretty intense.  Being an original six team that hasn’t done much in the playoffs in close to twenty years, this city is ready for a return to the Stanley Cup finals.

Using the Twitter Maps Bing Map application you can easily map keywords or hashtags. With that in mind, what do the tweets for #Bruins look like in the Boston region? Well, as you could imagine they are numerous and people are hopefully pumped for today’s game:

Now, when searching for TBLightning (the official twitter handle for the Lightning), the number of tweets is can be found mostly in Florida:

When using the NHL’s official hash tag for this series, #BOSTBL, the distribution of tweets, in my opinion, favors Bruins country:

Check out the Bing Twitter mapping application yourself. There are plenty of other keywords that you could map to get a feel of what is happing on the social interwebs!

 

Lets go Bruins!

 

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Mapping North Korea

UPDATE – As of 1/30/2013 Google has added North Korea features to its maps.  Feel free to continue reading this post, because as of 5/18/2011, when this post was written, it was spot on. Just imagine that the embedded Google maps don’t have any features.  I really should have grabbed screen shots when I wrote this.

A week or so ago I read a story from Amnesty International that discussed the use of satellite imagery to measure the growth of  political prison camps in North Korea.  I thought it was great that these citizen geographers were using a resource such as satellite imagery to measure this troubling phenomena.  Then, the inquiring geographer in me wanted to know where these prison camps were within North Korea. A quick Google/Wikipedia search gave me some coordinates and I was able to find the locations on the map.  I then noticed something, that to me, that was way more interesting.

I zoomed out just a little bit and I noticed the total lack of cartographic markers on the map. I then zoomed out some more and there were still no place names, regional boundaries, city names, or physical features.  Test it for yourself, zoom in and out on the following Google Map.  Pretty amazing.


View Larger Map

Then I checked out the region around the capital city of Pyongyang, which is a city of over three million residents.  Still, nothing.


View Larger Map

The researcher in me then wanted to compare the cartographic representation of North Korea using other popular online map services.  I did a simple search for North Korea and Pyongyang using Bing Maps, Open Street Map, and MapQuest. The following results are very interesting.

Bing, owned by a gigantic corporation, which has used professional data providers for many years, has a much better North Korea map than Google, with cities, regional boundaries, and physical features labeled:

and Bing’s Pyongyang map had some minimal detail to it.

Open Street Map (OSM), an open source, user created worldwide map, was by far the most detailed.  Why? Because the OSM community created and published the data themselves.


View Larger Map

There is also far more detail in and around Pyongyang than Bing and Google.


View Larger Map

MapQuest (yes, they still exist) was a happy medium between Bing, and OSM.  There was detail in regards to the major cities, regional boundaries, and physical features.  There was also a clear difference in terms of  the cartographic details when one compared the cartographic features in the neighboring countries of China and South Korea.

Around Pyongyang the level of map detail was greater than Google and Bing, but less than OSM.  The user can make out details related to major transportation networks and some local features.

The overriding questions is, why would these three other web mapping providers map this information but Google wouldn’t?  I searched for a reason throughout the interwebs and I couldn’t find a legitimate answer.  I understand the North Korea is a closed society, run by a dictator that has a horrible human rights record. However, if this apart of Google’s “do no evil” approach to business then why are other countries with troubled histories, dictators, or in civil wars mapped?  Whatever the reason, there are a number of other sources for mapping data that are easily accessible.

 

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Upcoming GIS Conference – Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis

I will be attending Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis annual conference as an interested spectator this Friday and Saturday, May 6th and 7th.  This year’s conference is focused on the future of web-mapping and geo-collaboration.  Reading through the program it looks like there will be a number of very interesting talks and demonstrations.

From the program:

“This two-day conference will bring web-mapping experts from across the country to Harvard to share their knowledge and experience, and to envision what lies ahead. Speakers will introduce ideas, systems, tools, and visions, and present case studies and discuss challenges. Some will offer live demos and hands-on training. This conference provides a forum for geospatial technologists, developers, academics and end users to engage in dialog and help shape the future of geospatial technology on the Internet.”

source

I am interested in seeing what the world of online mapping is to people who aren’t like me, a trained GIS geek.  Because, let’s face it; many new and innovative web-mapping tools don’t come from geographers, but people who have a particular problem and a new way to solve it.  I am hoping to tap into the web-mapping mojo that will be in abundance at the conference and perhaps incorporate some of the ideas into my current projects.

It looks like registration is still open for the conference. If you are in the Boston area on Friday and Saturday and want to be on the cutting edge of web-mapping and geo-collaboration this could be a great conference for you!

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Google Map V3 WMS Transparency Slider!

Gavin, from topomap.co.nz sent me a note the other day about some work he did in regards to developing a transparency slider for Google Maps V3:

“I’ve created a transparency slider control that works with Google Maps API V3, if there’s enough demand I’ll take some time and extract it from my code to publish as a nice neat example so others can use it too. See it in action at http://www.topomap.co.nz/and use the “contact” tab there to get in touch if you’re interested.”

The transparency slider works perfectly and the slider bar fits well into the layout of the page.  I hope to take Gavin’s work and create a stand alone example sometime over the next few days.  In the meantime check out topomap.co.nz if you have some free time!


View Larger Topographic Map

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Everything Should be Mapped – Somerville Tax Liens

I came across an interesting dataset the other day while reading the Boston Globe (online of course, does anyone buy actual newspapers anymore?).  The story, originally from Ward 5 Online, was discussing the number of properties in my current hometown, Somerville, Massachusetts, that have tax liens over 10,000 dollars!  The article provided a table from the City that included the address, owner name, and amount in back taxes for each property.   The story reported that this data was made available by the City’s aldermen through a request regarding derelict buildings that were shedding bricks (yikes!).

After I read the story I started to search for some of the properties to see if they were in my neighborhood.  I quickly realized that this data would be better utilized if it were in a map.  Thanks to Google Fusion I was able to quickly modify the table and map the addresses and back tax balances.  In the map I created I only included the amount owed, the location, the status (many of the properties have been taken over by the city), and the number of years that the property is late on their taxes.

Back Taxes Legend: • 10k to 15k •15k to 20k  • 20k to 25k  • >25,000k

This data can be further analyzed with a number of other free datasets including census, income, or home sales data.  One could then perform any number of analyses to see if there are any spatial patterns in regards to these large tax liens throughout the City (aka, future blog idea).

Also, this map is not perfect.  We all know that there are limitations to mapping with Google, especially in reference to thematic mapping, but overall one cannot complain about the speed and efficiency of creating a simple, but effective map with Google Fusion.  One item I would like to see from Google would be an embeddable legend.  Esri’s JavaScript API can do it, why can’t Google’s?  Now, we can have a discussion about how Google is collecting all of this data, having us create it for them(for free), and then doing who knows what with it, but that is for another day (aka, another future blog post).

Over the next couple of days I will take my dataset over to GeoCommons and work with their tools to create a better map and perhaps do some analysis (aka, another future blog post).

Until next time…

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Massachusetts Census and Google Fusion

2010 Massachusetts Census Results by Town  – Google Fusion

Population | -5,000 | 5,001 -30,000| 30,001-75,000 | 75,001-125,000|+125,001

About a week ago I read a post from James Fee about a really impressive mash-up displaying the 2010 US Census redistricting data.  The mash-up came from WNYC displaying NYC’s 2010 US Census redistricting data by census tract. The development of the mash-up was explained in detail in a blog by John Keefe.

The map authors used Google Fusion to serve their data.  As we know Fusion allows for data with a spatial component to be easily mapped in Google Maps, but polygon mapping is limited to large geographic extents, like states or countries.  This limits users who may want to map data that doesn’t fit this mold.

The authors of the WNYC map needed more geographic detail, so they imported a number of census tract shapefiles into Google Fusion using a tool called Shape to Fusion.  They then merged several tables with the spatial data and then visualized it using Fusion’s visualization tools.  Shape to Fusion provided a great work around.  This online tool loads a zipped shapefile into a table in the user’s Google Fusion account, creating a geometry column.  The geometry column can then be mapped in Google Maps.  Brilliant!  The concept of storing geometry in a database isn’t new, but Shape to Fusion’s capabilities in the Google Fusion interface are slick.

So, after reading John Keefe’s blog I wanted to try it our for myself.  First, I went to MassGIS and downloaded town boundary data that included population counts from the 1980 to 2000 census.  Next, I downloaded the 2010 town census data from the Massachusetts Secretary of State.  After I loaded the 2010 census data into my Google Fusion account I used the Shape to Fusion tool to load the zipped shapefile into my Google Fusion account.   I merged the spatial data and the census data based on the town field and presto, web maps.

Following the advice of John Keefe‘s blog I created a separate table for each layer I wanted to map and the results are below.  Now, I don’t have the bells and whistles that the WNYC map has yet, but I was able to generate four embeddable maps in minutes that fit well in a blog format.  In fact, it probably took me longer to write this blog than it did to create the maps.  When I get some free time or when SF1 comes out I’ll build a more robust mash-up using this technique.

Here are the maps.  The user can click on a town a get some basic information as well.

1980 Massachusetts Population


Population | -5,000 | 5,001 -30,000| 30,001-75,000 | 75,001-125,000|+125,001

1990 Massachusetts Population


Population | -5,000 | 5,001 -30,000| 30,001-75,000 | 75,001-125,000|+125,001

2000 Massachusetts Population


Population | -5,000 | 5,001 -30,000| 30,001-75,000 | 75,001-125,000|+125,001

2010 Massachusetts Population


Population | -5,000 | 5,001 -30,000| 30,001-75,000 | 75,001-125,000|+125,001

Get mapping!

GO UCONN! NCAA CHAMPIONS!

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Sweet 2010 Census Mash-Up

My hard-working friends at the Connecticut State Data Center and the Map and Geographic Information Center (MAGIC) at the University of Connecticut Homer Babbidge Library have started to post data from the Wednesday March, 9th release of the 2010 census data for the state of Connecticut.  Talk about a quick turn around!

One of their most interesting 2010 Census Google Map Mash-Ups on their site displays dual-linked Google Maps, with one map displaying the 2010 Connecticut census results by town and the other the 2000 Connecticut census results by town.  The dual-linked maps are synchronized, meaning that movement one map happen on the other.  The user also has the ability to search for their town, or download the data for their own use.  The user can also click on a town and view a table of census data to see how population has changed across Connecticut.  I’m looking forward to what other mash-ups they roll out over the next few days.

Take a look at their site.  MAGIC has been around for a long time, and they have always been innovators in their field.

CTSDC Dual Linked Maps - 2010 Census
CTSDC Dual Linked Maps - 2010 Census

and…quick disclaimer, I helped write the code for the underlying mash-up.  That’s it, they did the rest and they did a great job.

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MapServer Experimentation

A few people have requested that I put together an example of data from MapServer embedded in a Google Map Mash-Up.  Well, here it is:

MapServer Data in Google Maps

MapServer, originally developed at the University of Minnesota,  “is an Open Source platform for publishing spatial data and interactive mapping applications to the web.” MapServer is a powerful tool for sharing geographic data and its uses are found all over the web.

The data comes from the Iowa Environment Mesonet, and the current map example displays historical CONUS NEXRAD base reflectivity.  Their site has a number of other weather related datasets that are updated at regular time intervals.  With this in mind, and using some of my other examples, one could combine a number of these data sources and create a pretty interesting weather related Google map mash-up.

Several of their datasets are also time enabled, meaning that one could create time sliders using this data.   When using this code, note that several different settings are used to make the NoData values transparent, and to tack the map data to the Google Map.  In this example, the user cannot turn the MapServer layer on or off.