Creative fuel..

You're in the midst of your project design and need to look at something else for a bit? Perfectly understandable. Check out the following links. Maybe one of these will spark your interest...

Interactive Map of Parking Tickets in New York City (don't you want to see a version for campus?)

NPR's visualization of the U.S. power grid

Council on Foreign Relation's interactive Crisis Guides. I stumbled on these looking for interactive pieces for my world regional class. The guides all have some maps and graphics (climate is more video based) -- they are very nicely done especially considering the amount of content they contain. Some bits, like the Chapter III map in the Darfur Guide, use clever tricks to show multiple symbols that are clustered together (...they show both symbols simultaneously, but class them on separate active layers so you can easily click on the symbols to get additional info). And if you wondered about adding video and narration...more professional design there.

The growth of Target stores in the US. A simple design that lets the data drive the visuals. I love seeing the invasion of Southern California in the mid 80's (an essentially Walmart-free area at that time).

Proof!

Tomorrow (Thursday, April 30th) is the Final Project Proof. You MUST come to RA113 and show me the status of your final project. You need to be beyond data and basemaps. You need to be mapping and applying the interface design. It does not have to be finished, but you need to have serious work underway. Warning: it takes more time to pull off a good Flash project than an Illustrator map (all of your interface components have to be functional and intuitive). Do not procrastinate!

Next week we have one additional class work block on Tuesday, May 5th from 10:30-11:45. This is right before final exams begin. Yes, I know you are swamped with papers and projects and exam prep....but please fit some Flash in there as well. The 5th is only 2 days from the 7th...just barely enough time to troubleshoot Flash scripting issues (oh yeah, you'll probably have some). Come the 5th, I'd suggest pausing on the graphic manipulation so that you can get the interface and movement of the project functional. You can always go back and polish the bits and pieces.

Thursday, May 7th (10:30am-1:15pm): **Final Exam time block.** This will be our Final Project Presentation time. Your finished Flash project is due at 10:30am. Each person will have 6-8 minutes to present their work. Similar to 310 last Fall.

If you have questions on any of this or need more clarification, Please let me know!
Keep clicking!

Reminder

We're meeting in Innovation today. Yup, it is final project time, but I have exams to hand back and I want to thrown some additional Flash techniques at ya.

Cartograms

Cartogram examples:
How the World really Shapes Up has examples of the quick to generate automated cartograms. Not great, but interesting.

These are ones with lots of human manipulation. It is possible to make very nice looking cartograms:
What Your Neighbors are Buying by the NYTimes
Who has the Oil? static cartogram (bivariate)
Show USA and Show World are discontiguous cartograms (which are easier to produce).

What about cartogram generators? We're starting to see more online. They are not as nice as hand made versions, but much, much easier. ScapeToad is one that looks promising (haven't experimented with it yet).

And finally, linear cartograms ala Subway maps:
NYC and London subway maps and modifications
Discussion and links about the new Madrid subway map
Actual new Madrid maps-- both simplified and with traditional basemap.
Please read through these 3 links -- the issues they touch on might be on the exam next week...

(and not on the exam but interesting in a mapping sort of way: Royksopp music vieo)

One month left!

Our final projects are due on Thursday, May 7th so the end is in sight. Before you get too excited, we still have some key things to accomplish.

This week we are going to discuss some unique classes of maps: Cartograms and Multivariate Maps (see other post). We will also start our last regular lab (#10). We will be playing around with Adobe Photoshop Elements. Photoshop is a raster based graphics program. I personally feel it is the best piece of graphics software out there -- the range of uses and the breadth of options in Photoshop is seemingly endless. Every time I use it I find a new effect or technique. For Cartographers, Photoshop is a powerful tool for creating, cleaning, and/or customizing your graphic elements. It is perfect for both print and digital media, and accepts (and exports) a wide range of formats. In essence, it is amazingly helpful. I use Illustrator for detailed map making and Photoshop for making all the elements of the end product come together.

For Lab 10, we will be using Photoshop Elements. It is a "light" version of the program. For our purposes, it is just fine -- all of the key components are there. It is optimized more for photo manipulation, but working with maps and visualizations is not all that different. If you are familiar with the regular version of Photoshop, you will find some of the options in different places. If you have access to a full version of Photoshop and are more comfortable with that, I have no objection to you using that instead. Unlike Flash and SketchUp, Photoshop Elements is on all of the Innovation computers so we will actually **meet in Innovation 320 on Thursday.** Photoshop is not on the computers in RA113 (maybe one?) but can be found in the large Innovation computer lab as well as the Johnson Center computer labs.

The other key info is that we have the exam next Tuesday in class (April 14th). The exam will cover the content we discussed each Tuesday in class. Look through the Topic Briefs your classmates have presented as well as the content I've covered on the class blog. I won't ask technical questions from the labs (such as how to convert text to a button), but will assume you remember the general goals of each lab. I'm looking to see if you have broadened your scope on maps and the changes that non-static mapping present. The exam will be short essay format. I'll provide the paper...you bring a pen or pencil. Questions? Please post a comment!

Lab 9: SketchUp

Today we are officially starting SketchUp -- should be a refreshing change from weeks of Flash. Below are some links referred to in the lab write-up:

New User Video Turtorials
Hints specifically for Google Earth
GMU Campus Map