Historic Trade Routes of the Kingdoms of Shrivijaya and Sailendra
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This map was submitted as my final project for a cartography class at Western Washington University. I knew that I wanted to create a historical-style map, something similar to a treasure map. With the help of Huxley College’s Map Librarian, Janet Collins, I was able to find a National Geographic map with the trade routes depicted in the final project. A line shapefile was created and the routes were then digitized on-screen using the map as a reference.
Symbology throughout the project was rather simple, as our professor had given us a clean dataset to work with from the beginning. For example, the border shapefile was distributed with a ‘bnd_type’ attribute which differentiated coastline from an international boundary. This allowed us to focus on pure cartography rather than grappling with data management issues.
One of the most interesting challenges in the project was how to add a sense of depth and visual separation between the countries and the ocean. Placing a lat/long grid between the ocean and country layers helped, but the countries still were not standing out. I was given a coastline multiple ring buffer layer, where I symbolized each ring with a progressively lighter shade of brown, until it matched the ocean color itself. I really recommend this trick when the feel of bathymetric data is required for purely cartographic purposes. Strong serif fonts such as Monotype Corsiva aided in the old-world look. Overall design time was around nine hours.
Urban Areas of the Puget Sound Lowlands
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The third lab for an Intermediate GIS course, an advanced cartography project, revolved around the creation of a swiss-style shaded relief map. ESRI’s Mapping Center and http://www.reliefshading.com/ provided great tips and tricks used throughout this lab.
The source LIDAR data came from the University of Washington School of Oceanography. Trouble first arose with the fact that the metadata associated with the LIDAR imagery gave an incorrect horizontal datum. After working with Tyson Waldo, I was able to establish that the correct datum was NAD 1983 State Plane WA North, thereby allowing me to continue to overlay vector files.
The hillshade process was augmented by a set of modelbuilder tools created by the USGS and hosted on ESRI’s Mapping Center.
Cartographic representations, a new feature in ArcGIS 9.2 were used in the ferry routes line file. This allowed me to make unwanted ferry routes (routes that started in the map extent but went off of the extent) ‘invisible’.
A custom data frame for the main map was used due to the extent of the LIDAR mosaic, which left the upper-left hand corner of the map exposed. I had issue with the extent map not printing out or exporting, my feeling was that I was unable to set a graphical order properly. This left me with an extent map printing black every time, stuck behind the main map.
I exported two JPEGs into photoshop, one with the main extent turned on and the other off. Layering the main map above the extent, I was able to cut a hole through the map extent white space, revealing the extent map lined-up below
The study area was chosen because I wanted to work with data from the Hood Canal area. I decided to use urban areas as an additional vector dataset because I felt that by using transparencies, I would be able to show map relevant information without detracting from the hillshade.
The colors were based off of satellite imagery from Google Earth, the intention was to stay true to the PacNW while still using a lighter valued palate that would go along with the swiss-hillshade theme.
USGS LULC Air Photo Delineation
As a precursor to automated land use classification techniques, this lab dealt with the manual delineation of USGS LULC zones. This was accomplished through hand digitization over an areal photo of Bellingham, WA. The resulting polygon, which contained over a hundred features was then dissolved according to the LULC code as part of the final QAQC process. Area statistics for each LULC type were then generated and converted from square feet to acres.
Aesthetically, this map was created with simplicity in mind. It has been purposely designed to break cartographic rules. The main map for example, is lacking a locator map, forcing the user to use the title to orient themselves. Furthermore, no text labels can be found in the main frame itself. This was a conscious choice as the purpose of the map was not for orienting purposes, but rather to show the spatial distribution of Land Use Land Classification sites within the city boundaries. Finally, white space was used as much as possible, my intent being to simulate a map which would typically be produced for internal use in a municipality, where plotter ink is at a premium.