Jason's GeoJourney

This week in Computer Cartography (GIS 5007), I completed Module 2 which covered map elements and typography.  This module was helpful in reinforcing and sharpening some of the existing knowledge learned and skills developed in Introduction to GIS, in addition to learning a few new things, such as the importance of placement, color, size, symbolization, and much more for various icons, labels, and other features used in map layouts.   For the module, I prepared a map of Florida that shows the locations of six different Florida county seats by population size. I incorporated t hree customizations to this map include delineating select county seats by population (larger red circles for cities over 100,000 and smaller yellow circles for cities under 100,000), inserting a data table listing the numeric population values, and using swamp/water default for the swamps’ symbology. Overall, I am pleased with the map produced, and I felt that this week's activities provided a need...

This week in Computer Cartography I completed the first lab which involved the evaluation of two different maps (one well-designed map and one poorly-designed map) that we were able to select from several provided in our lab materials. The maps were evaluated using a map evaluation template provided to the class.  In addition, I evaluated the well-designed map with three of the six commandments of map design based on the 20 "Tufteisms" from statistician Edward Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantiative Information .  I end with making three main recommendations to improve the poorly-designed map. For the well-designed map, I selected an example of a map of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) because I am interested in developing something similar for my own projects:   a topographic reference map that shows archaeological sites and features in relation to elevation, major roads, cities, and the coastline. Based on Commandment 1 (Map Substantial Information), I believe this map show...

This week I started Computer Cartography (GIS 5007), which is my second course in the graduate certificate in GIS at UWF. I hope to enhance the knowledge I learned in the previous class, Introduction to GIS (GIS 5050), while expanding my knowledge and skill base in GIS and in cartographic design principles. Recently I resumed archaeological fieldwork with my Gulf Coast State College students at an important historic/archaeological site in Panama City.  We are currently exploring sites associated with the "lost" town of St. Andrews (1827-1863). For more information on the project, please check out My Story Map . Below is a cut and zoom of the 1855 U.S. Coastal Survey Map of St. Andrews City.  I hope to eventually work with this map/image formally in GIS, including overlaying it with modern aerial photographs and topographic maps, georefencing archaeological field data to it, and incorporating all the proper map elements in the final layout.

Today I finished my Final Project for GIS 5050.  Overall, I felt like I did satisfactory project, but unfortunately, I did not finish the fourth, or final objective, which was to estimate the engineering costs of the line through a digitization and computational process. Overall though, I found the project helpful in reinforcing the skills and knowledge I learned in this course, though I encountered a few difficult moments.  This included problems geocoding the Sarasota County Schools list table but this was because I incorrectly used the 2022, instead of 2020 Census edges file.  I wish I had more time to work on the project by finishing the final objective, but I must move on to prepare for the next course in the GIS graduate certificate program. Here is a screenshot of all the layers for my final project over the basemap.  Of course it is messy, so I will follow with an example of two of the analytical maps I created.   This map, for Objective #1, shows the en...