Monday, November 8, 2010

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Project 3: Prepare - Better Books








The maps above were created while preparing data for the Better Books store location project. This task ran smoothly.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Project 2: Report

Project 2 Powerpoint presentation on the Marin, CA tree program and proposed city center.

http://students.uwf.edu/ldl14/LDL_Project2_Presentation.pptx

Monday, September 27, 2010

Project 2: Prepare

Above is my Marin City base map. I was able to find a good road shape file to project and clip. I searched for other files that may be helpful for a base map of the area, but was unsuccessful.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Analyze and Report: Project 1







This week was a little disorienting for me. I think I got caught up in the amount of data and lost sight of the task. I did what I could and I sort of just turned in what I had. When I did my analysis it was not clear to me what population to target. I think the next weeks should be easier now that I know how its going to work.






Monday, July 26, 2010

Module 5: LIDAR


The map above was produced during the Module 5: LIDAR challenge. This exercise went pretty smooth. I had no issues importing data or creating new layers. My only hesitation was if the road is in the right location, but I think I got it right.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Module 4 - Challenge Map

http://students.uwf.edu/ldl14/LeviLeBourgeoisModule4Map.xps

I found this module challenging. I believe I got the concept of getting signatures. I had a little trouble analyzing them. I also ran into software trouble. I had a hard time actually using the signature editor because it would become unresponsive and other times it worked great. I was not sure if we needed to merge any classes or if you wanted to see the histogram data for all. If I would have merged classes, the fallow fields and some of the urban areas would have been merged.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Module 3: Challenge

http://students.uwf.edu/ldl14/LeviLeBourgeoisModule3Map1c.xps

http://students.uwf.edu/ldl14/LeviLeBourgeoisGCPTablePensacola.pdf

The above map and tables were created during the module 3 challenge. The most trouble I had in this challenge was formating my finished map's layout. It's a little hard getting used to the new software. Once I got the hang of the control points the challenge went smoothly.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Final Project


Final project map. A map of the United States showing the mean ACT score and participation rates by state for the year 2009. The participants who took the exam were high school seniors.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Week 11: Google Earth


I chose this area to locate the Great Lakes Wind farm. It's located in the eastern part of Lake Michigan. This location is in a zone that has the most projected power output per turbine. It is close in proximity to major existing transmission lines. The distance is far enough offshore (15 km) to mitigate any noise or shadows cast by the towers but close enough for acceptable water depth.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Week 10: Isarithmic Mapping

The above map shows the mean precipitation of the state of Georgia completed for the week ten lab exercise. I used my pencil skills I picked up last week to create the contoured lines. The task seemed daunting at first because of all the numbers on the map, but after a while the process sunk in. I made the greys transparent to show the counties underneath. The hardest part of this lab was to match the border of the state with the lines. That task took some time.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Week 9: Flow Maps


The above map was completed using the Week 9: Flow Maps lab. It shows the immigration to the United States by region. I chose a 30 point arrow for my largest value and calculated the rest using the equation in this lesson's pdf file. Since there is only seven arrows, I decided to used the specific values rather than range graded lines. I became very familiar with the pencil tool this exercise and seemed to get the hang of it. Deciding what went into the legend and how to show it was the trickiest part of the lab.


Sunday, March 14, 2010

Week 8: Dot Maps


The map above was created during the week 8 lab. I found it interesting working in excel and calculating my dot values. Each dot represented 4 housing units per square mile. I ended up using around 2200 dots in the map. Once I got the hang of creating the dots, it did not take long to do the map. I made the dots red so they would not get confused with the black borders of the counties. I thought the map looked interesting when just the dot layer were visible, but I left the other layers up to show why some areas of density existed.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Week 7: Proportional Circle Lab



The above map was created in the Week 7: Proportional Circle Lab. I enjoyed working with the data in excel. The process of calculating the circle size was interesting. I used the circle sizes in the legend because they represented even numbers and breaks in the data that would be easy for a map user to identify. I do feel I had room to make Europe larger in the map. I would change that if I had to do the exercise over. This did give me a change to practice overlapping circles. I placed a white ring around the circles and made them about 50% transparent so I could stack them. The larger circles were placed first on the bottom and the smaller circles on top. I used a symbol from the symbol library to indicate no data for countries with no data. It also allowed me to practice using groups and layers. Being able to edit all the circles at once was a huge help. I decided not to leave the country labels active because I feel they cluttered the map and took attention away from what the circles were communicating.










































Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Week 6: Choropleth






The above maps were produced for the week 6 choropleth lab. They show the percentage change in population for the U.S. by state and census divisions for 1990-2000. I decided to round the numbers for each class. I thought this would be easier for a map user to read. I was not pleased with my Hawaii scale bar. I deleted part of it before I scaled the state thinking it would look better than a big bar. I then figured out how to scale down the numbers and bars without disturbing the length of the bars. If I could go back I would change that. I found the easiest way to change the states to grayscale was to calculate my classes first, then create the legend. Once I had the colors for the legend, I just clicked on each stated and hit the appropriate legend color with the eyedropper tool. The hardest part of the lab was dividing the data in excel. I found the best way was to give each state a division code then sort that way, as someone suggested in the discussions. I think this step had the most potential for human error. I had to double check this and indeed had to correct some errors.

















Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Week 5: Map Composition

The above map is the lab assignment for week five. It shows the percentage of Hispanic population in southern Florida by county. I decided to change the color of the choropleth map to the same family of colors only different shades to better visually communicate the changes in Hispanic population from county to county. The lighter to darker shades work well with increasing population percentage. I removed some of the scale bar. I found it bigger than the map user would need. After centering the main map showing the percentage of Hispanics, I decided the legend and north arrow should go on the bottom making the map bottom heavy. I then chose the best available space for the United States and Florida maps showing the location of the main map. The problems I faced in this assignment was having so many options to choose from. (colors, layout options, etc.) I'm getting better with Illustrator but i definitely need more practice.




Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Week 4: Florida Keys




The map above shows a portion of the Florida Keys. It includes cities, key names, harbors and some points of interest such as airports and state parks. I found using Adobe Illustrator extremely difficult. I think this was do to me being on the road and having to use a laptop with no mouse. The dragging and scaling of objects was nearly impossible. I enjoyed picking out different fonts for label this map. I utilized existing symbols to enhance the labeling such as circles and airplane symbols.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Week 3: Data Classification Lab



The above maps show the percentage African American population of Escambia County, Florida using census data from the year 2000. Each of the four maps uses a different type of data classification.






I chose the equal interval map as the best map to display this data. The evenly distributed breaks make it easy for the map user to identify and easily compare different areas of the black population. The quantile and natural break classification maps contain uneven breaks that make it difficult to compare different areas on the maps. The standard deviation classification map's breaks make it very hard for any map user, much less a novice to understand what each color actually represents.









Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Module 1 Lab Assignment




I chose the above map as an example of a bad map. This map was an attempt to represent North American cities with Swiss Airline flight destinations and cities that held partner airline operations. What makes this a bad map is the errors in geographic location for most major cities. For example Little Rock, Arkansas is located far north of it's actual location and Sacramento, California is depicted east of it's correct location. I would hope the Swiss Airline pilots do not use flight maps created by the same individual.











The map above is my choice for a good map. This map represents religion as it relates to regions in the United States. This map is labeled in a clear and detailed manner. The data is conveyed simplistically, with the use of different colors to represent the leading religious bodies in each county. The user is given all relevant information at the base of the map that they would need to effectively understand the data the map communicates.