Lab 9 Buffering

Lab Week 5

I chose Mica Peak mainly because everyone else was doing Mt. Spokane and I wanted to do something different.  I originally went to the USGS site to download a dramatic hill outside Sandpoint.  It took forever to download on school computers but when I downloaded it in literally 10 minutes at home I could figure out how to transfer the data back to the Virtual Lab.  It frustrates me that the Internet at the local coffee shop is literally 100's of times faster than Internet at a school I pay $8000 a year to attend. 
I tried to load a copy of ArcGIS to my laptop, but I couldn't get it to verify.  So eventually I had to get the assignment in and went with easy data from the Washington State repository.  I downloaded the 10 meter DEM file for Mica Peak in the Spokane Valley.  The top map is a 3-D relief.  I created the other three maps by turning on and off the various data sets and then creating an individual legend for the maps.

LAB 4B

Lab 4

Fuller Projection: Presented to the world in the March 1, 1943, edition of Life magazine, the Dymaxion map or Fuller (after creator Buckminster Fuller) map is a projection of a world map onto the surface of an icosahedron, which can be unfolded and flattened to two dimensions. The flat map is heavily interrupted in order to preserve shapes and sizes. Fuller applied for a patent in the United States in February 1944, the patent application showing a projection onto a cuboctahedron. The patents were issued in January 1946.

Azimuthal Equidistant Projection: The useful property of this projection is from the center point all points on the map are at proportionately correct distances, and all points on the map are at the correct azimuth (direction) from the center point. A useful application for this type of projection is a polar projection which shows all meridians (lines of longitude) as straight, with distances from the north pole represented correctly. The flag of the United Nations contains an example of a polar azimuthal equidistant projection.

Two-point Equidistant Projection: First described by Hans Maurer in 1919 this projection is a generalization of the much simpler azimuthal equidistant projection. Two locus points are chosen by the mapmaker to configure the projection. Distances from the two loci to any other point on the map are correct: that is, they scale to the distances of the same points on the sphere. The projection has been used for all maps of the Asian continent by the National Geographic Society atlases to reduce distortion and sometimes appears in maps of air routes.

Mercator projection: A cylindrical map projection presented by Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It became the standard map projection for nautical purposes because of its ability to represent lines of constant course as straight segments which conserve the angles with the meridians. .As in all cylindrical projections, parallels and meridians are straight and perpendicular to each other. In accomplishing this, the unavoidable east-west stretching of the map, which increases as distance away from the equator increases, is accompanied in the Mercator projection by a corresponding north-south stretching, so that at every point location, the east-west scale is the same as the north-south scale, making the projection conformal. Although the Mercator projection is still used commonly for navigation, due to its unique properties, cartographers agree that it is not suited to general reference world maps due to its distortion of land area.

Cylindrical Equal-area Projection:  The term "normal cylindrical projection" is used to refer to any projection in which meridians are mapped to equally spaced vertical lines and circles of latitude are mapped to horizontal lines. The mapping of meridians to vertical lines can be visualized by imagining a cylinder (of which the axis coincides with the Earth's axis of rotation) wrapped around the Earth and then projecting onto the cylinder, and subsequently unfolding the cylinder.

Lab 3 ArcMap Tutorial

This situation has changed substantially in recent years. It is now generally recognized that error, inaccuracy, and imprecision can "make or break" many types of GIS project. That is, errors left unchecked can make the results of a GIS analysis almost worthless. The irony is that the problem of error is devolves from one of greatest strengths of GIS. GIS gain much of their power from being able to collate and cross-reference many types of data by location. They are particularly useful because they can integrate many discrete datasets within a single system. Unfortunately, every time a new dataset is imported, the GIS also inherits its errors. These may combine and mix with the errors already in the database in unpredictable ways. 

The success of GIS has in some ways proved to be a mixed blessing to academic geography. While quantitative geography has developed as a disciplinary specialism over a long period of time, the infusion of GIS has been more rapid and applications-led. Geography has been a consumer, not producer, of mainstream GIS software, and as such GIS may even contribute towards accelerated de-skilling of the discipline. The technology nevertheless provides a crucial means of dealing with the current proliferation of digital data, and has important implications for the future development of geography.


Making good maps can be challenging, time consuming, and expensive, but recently, a new set of cheap and free mapping tools has enabled almost anyone with a computer to easily make a map—but good maps are not usually the result.  They have the computer and software, but the new mapmakers lack the mapping concepts, principles, and methodologies.  Their maps are often improperly designed and do not communicate easily nor effectively.


Creating good maps and analyzing spatial data is a time consuming and challenging practice, but recently, a new set of powerful mapping tools has enabled almost anyone with a computer to make maps easily and to perform at least some low-level analyses.  The results, however, are not encouraging.  Most of the new mapmakers do not have adequate training in mapping concepts and spatial analysis principles, and their maps are often improperly designed and do not communicate easily nor effectively.  This e-text—GIS Commons—seeks to help you analyze spatial data and communicate more effectively.  In short, GIS education is our goal.

Lab 2

Lab 1

A Mind Map of the Food System:

The USDA Map of All Farmers Markets in the U.S. circa 2011:

 

This is a map of all the farmers markets in the U.S. circa 2011. I needs to be updated to 2014. I think it also needs to be interactive with an ability to zoom in and out of regions. I would also make it s when you moused over a pin it would show the name of te market, it's days and hours, and directions. You can find this map at PBS Food.

Photovoltaic Solar Resources: United States and Germany:

 

This mind map comes from National Renewable Energy Labratory and shows us the potential for photovoltac solar in the United States. It is interesting in that Germany which is producing much more of it's total energy budget using photovoltaic energy, while not having nearly the capacity of the United States. This means the U.S. whose governmental energy policies are dictated by the fossil fuel industry is missing out on a huge opportunity to capture the solar enegy market in the United States.