Final Project Critique

I feel I've made a great deal of progress on my final project. The goal was to create a photo animation of the National Mall. I picked what I thought were the best ten shots. I added transition shots and individual snapshots of the monuments. I feel I'm about 90% to 95% done.


  Full size link: http://mason.gmu.edu/~jvigil4/final_project/final_project_01   These are some of the questions I'd like to ask:
- Is it easy to navigate?
- If not, how can I improve the navigation?
- More or less text? info?
- Does animation go by at right speed? too fast? too slow?
- Overall suggestions?

Weekly Map 10: Cool and Interactive Leaflet Map Service, USGS TopoView

The USGS, like the rest of the mapping community reacts to changes in technology and public interest when it comes to map services. This new service offers access to the flagship product of the USGS; the topo map. You get access to historic and newer maps available for free at the USGS. BTW this map uses Leaflet technology. Check it out and as it's being tested please feel free to offer comments.

 

 

Link: http://ngmdb.usgs.gov/maps/TopoView/

Lab 10: Heatmap of Shallow Coal Deposits in Alabama

This heatmap shows & ranks 40 drill-hole locations by the thickness of shallow coal deposits present in Alabama. Red indicates thicker deposits and green indicates thinner deposits. Interesting script, I'm not sure it's the best way to present this type of data but I see other uses for it.

 

 

Link: http://mason.gmu.edu/~jvigil4/lab_10/jv_lab10a.html



Lab 9: Pop Density in Top 20 US Cities by Pop 1980, 1990, 2000 & 2010

This Leaflet map shows the population density (population per square mile) in the top 20 US cities by population. Leaflet, JavaScript and open source mapping in general seem to be where things are heading for now. I'm still finding my way here but it's beginning to make more sense.

Link: http://mason.gmu.edu/~jvigil4/lab_09/jv_lab09c.html

Weekly Map 8: Heatmap

I spent a lot of time looking for a good example of a heatmap. Surprisingly there aren't that many that I would consider good. This is Google's Sightsmap. I'm not crazy about it but there aren't that many choices.

Link: http://www.sightsmap.com/

Weekly Map 7: Zooming and Panning

I'm very familiar with this example of good zooming and panning. I like that you can use a traditional zooming tool with a rectangular selection. I also like that you can pan and get info on a particualr map with the same tool. Very cool.



This USGS service gives you access to thousands of Geologic maps in the US.

It's called the National Geologic Map Database (NGMDB)

Link: http://ngmdb.usgs.gov/maps/mapview/

Lab 8: Top 20 US Cities by Population in 2013

Here's my first attempt at Leaflet. This map shows the top 20 US cities by population in 2013. Other years will be added as it will be used as a base for Lab 9. Thank you Wikipedia!

 

 

Link: http://mason.gmu.edu/~jvigil4/jv_lab08a.html

Final Project Proposal: Photo Animation of the National Mall

Examples of Proposed Animation:

1. Powder River Basin Coal Mining:1984-2014 Landsat Images

 



Link: http://earthshots.usgs.gov/earthshots/node/68#ad-image-28

 

2. Google Landsat series

   

Link: https://earthengine.google.org/#intro/LasVegas

My proposal for a final project is to create an aerial/satellite photo animated timeline of the West end of the National Mall (Lincoln Memorial to Washington Monument) in Washington DC. I’ve always liked animations of maps, satellite images or aerial photos that show change of a particular geographic area over time. I’m also a big fan of the Google Landsat series that show areas like the Amazon basin and others, depicting phenomenon like deforestation, other human related changes or even naturally occurring changes to the environment over time. I started my research with every intention of availing myself of all the data the US Geological Survey (USGS) offers. I thought it would be fairly easy to collect satellite, aerial imagery, topo or other kind of data. While this is possible, the time necessary to accomplish a worthwhile project is considerable. With that, I turned to the almighty Google and one of my favorite freebies; Google Earth. While limited by resolution and exporting issues Google Earth offers a lot of good data. I concluded that narrowing my study area would be a good idea. I also wanted an easily recognizable locale with the potential for a lot of historic data available. I happen to be a frequent visitor to the National Mall and immediately went to check out the availability of images there. I was gladly surprised with over 50 years’ worth of images for the mall. The idea of collecting all of the necessary data in one place at the same time was very appealing and welcome.

What I have in mind is an animated, interactive series of satellite images of the West end of the National Mall over time. The animation should have some kind of timeline and maybe roll-overs indicating the different landmarks in the park along with the standard buttons for play and stop. It should highlight seasonal and physical changes to this historic site for the last fifty or so years. It should also have a splash screen with a short narrative of what’s contained in the animation and a start button. I may also include photos of iconic monuments. The audience of this map is a general one, though locals or people familiar with the site would be at the top of the list. I believe most people in the US would be familiar with this area and would want to see an animated timeline of it. I want to use Adobe Photoshop and Flash to do this. I anticipate minor obstacles if any, except for long hours of work putting this together. I need to do some research to find out dates when particular monuments opened and maybe some other info. I may have to adjust pictures in Photoshop. This animation should copy some of the elements used in labs 2 through 5. The schedule for the execution of this project should cover at least the next three weeks. A prototype is anticipated to be ready sometime in mid-April and the final product towards the last week of April.



Lab 7: Choropleth Map of VA Population by County

Here's my second attempt at a JavaScript map. I don't fully understand how it works but it works.

Link: http://mason.gmu.edu/~jvigil4/jv_lab07.html

Lab 6: What? This Actually Works?

Well, this was lots of fun!! Not!! Actually the process is kind of cool, even elegant you might say. What wasn't cool was that my Mason website wouldn't work. For days I couldn't see what I'd done. That's very frustrating for someone who's used to seeing what they're doing. Oh well, here it is in all its glory, a JavaScript map of Virginia with selected cities.

Link: http://mason.gmu.edu/~jvigil4/jv_lab06.html

Lab 5: Splash Screen for Lab 4

The task was to add a splash screen to the previous lab (New York by train). I took the opportunity to do some cleaning up and tweaking. It's a never ending job.

Weekly Map 6: Oil Spill Splash Screen

I found a lot of civil war related splash screens but I wanted a different one. This one is kind of cool. It gives you an introduction to an interactive map. I like the way that enough info is given to get you interested in exploring the rest of the map. The key map to the right is nicely done and tells you what you're looking at right away, in case you didn't know where the Beaufort Sea was.

Link: http://arcticspills.wwf.ca/#intro/

Weekly Map 5: Timeline of Carbon Emissions

I found this map that portrays the timeline of carbon emissions. The content is definitely relevant to what's going on today. I like the way the timeline is set up so you can see the year you're looking at and the total amount of carbon emissions. I also like that you can click on the timeline and place and move the view accordingly. I think this is an effective map.

 

Link: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/05/carbon_dioxide_emissions_by_country_over_time_the_worst_global_warming_polluters.html

Weekly Map 4: Morphin' Land Area to Population

This is a cool little animation map. It starts with the corresponding land areas of the world countries and morphs into areas representing the population for each country. This type of map is called a cartogram or an anamorphic map. It's a little bit cartoonish but it can be effective if used well. I think this is a good example. It definitely shows you where the highest populations are. 

 

 

Link: http://www.worldmapper.org/animations/wm01to02.html

Lab 4: Traveling from New York by Train in the 1930s

This lab was a bit of a challenge. We were given the task to animate a map of the US showing rate of travel from NY city, by train, in the 1930s. The object was to use "tweens" or in between shapes (shapes morphing into another shape). Tweens come in shape or motion tweens. Another term used for this type of animation is morphin'. Tweens come in shape tweens, like the one used to indicate distance, and motion tweens, like the one used for the timeline. This last one could've been done using a shape tween as well. Big lesson learned here; perfect all of your shapes in one layer before you start dropping them into specific or final layers. This is was turned this into a challenge for me, as I didn't perfect the shapes as a group. As a result I had all kinds of unexpected things going on as I played the animation. Overall a fun, challenging project with lots of potential uses.

Weekly Map 3: How Americans Get to Work by County

This map shows the predominant way people get to work by county. I like the fact that you can turn on and off all the different categories. Like other maps in this format, which is pretty common by the way, you can roll-over a particular county and get detailed info. You can also zoom in and out.

Link: http://flowingdata.com/2015/01/20/how-americans-get-to-work/

Lab 3: Republican Election Wins Map

For this lab we used the same base map as lab 2. We were tasked with showing five different presidential election results for one party. We had to use transparency to create a simulated "choropleth" effect. We also used on/off buttons for the different categories. I'm getting better at navigating Flash but I still think it's not exactly an intuitive application.

Lab 2: VCR Style NFL Playoffs Map 2014-15

Well, here's my first attempt at animating a map with Adobe Flash. The task was to take the four weekends that made up the NFL Playoffs, 2014-15 and create an interactive, animated map with VCR style buttons. We were given two different maps of US as a starting point. This was extremely helpful as it meant we didn't have to start with a completely empty page. The process included downloading NFL logos from different websites and cleaning them up in Photoshop. After setting up the four pages we had to create forward and backwards buttons. The two trickiest steps were to code the "action" of the buttons and the uploading to a host site so we could then embed the URL into our blog. Overall, a fun and challenging assignment.

Weekly Map 2: Sea Levels Rising

I searched the internet for a while looking for maps with simple animations, and with buttons. I didn't find many, it could be that I didn't look in the right places. I did find this animation of what would happen if the sea water levels were to rise in the world. The section on the USGS website has different animations for this same scenario but different scales and locations. I think this is an interesting animation not only because it's relevant, as we hear so much about "global warming" but also because it's pretty simple but effective in conveying its message. 

 

Link: http://cegis.usgs.gov/sea_level_rise.html

Weekly Map 1a: Slider Bar

This is a good example of this type of before-and-after map. It doesn't show linework or a legend but it does have a slider bar that lets you reveal one photo over the other. Very cool.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/Interactives/Sandy_before-after_images.htm

Lab 1: Photoshopping Sumatra Pictures

We were given two pictures of Banda Aceh, Sumatra. One was dated June 23 2004 and the other December 28 2004. Our task was to align both pictures in Photoshop and label appropriately so as convey or highlight the differences between them. The picture from December 2004 shows the devastation created by a tsunami that hit this area December 26 2004. The tsunami was the result of an earthquake of magnitude 9.1-9.3 that struck the Indian Ocean just off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.  The creation of these two maps started by aligning the December picture to the June picture in Photoshop. Linework and text were then added on different layers. The final pictures were then cropped and reduced in size.

Banda Aceh, Island of Sumatra (Indonesia) - 06.23.2004

Banda Aceh, Island of Sumatra (Indonesia) - 12.28.2004

Weekly Map 1: Interactive Map

http://link.map.geog.ucsb.edu/h5

I think this is an interesting interactive map. It's of the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara. I like the map itself, scale, linework, color and layout in general. Some of the interactive features I like about it:

- It can acquire your location from your computer or portable device

- Buildings are highlighted while hovering over them

- Information and pictures of the building are then given

Overall a cool looking map.