Mapping with Google Earth

Google Earth (GE) is a simple interface that users of all skills can use to view map layers.  GE provides the base with 3D structure layers, aerial landscape photography, borders, rivers, lakes, oceans, and just about anything you can think to want in a map.  What's more is that GE can import additional layers that you map in other programs like ArcGIS. 

This week we used Google Earth to revisit our Dot Density Population map of Southern Florida.  The dot density layers that were created in ArcGIS were converted to the .kmz format that GE uses.  The two layers were: 1.  Entire map containing dots depicting populations, water features were included as well and 2.  Layer that dot density was derived from that showed different information in GE.

The second layer did not show the dot densities in GE.  Instead, when a county was clicked on, like Miami-Dade County in the screenshot below, it would display the information for that country. 

County Information - Google Earth

The next task we completed in this lab was to create a tour using our existing dot density layers and visiting different points around southern Florida.  The map itself with the dot density layer looked like this:

Additional points were added in GE for reference when creating the tour.  The tour started from the view in the screenshot above, depicting the population dot density for the region as well as highlighting the different water features.  It then hops from Miami to Fort Lauderdale and then moves west across the state to St. Petersburg and Tampa.  I tried to give different perspectives throughout the tour and as hard as I tried, things weren't exactly smooth.  Once the tour was completed, it was added to the overall .kmz package in GE to complete the project.  I was even able to convert/export the movie to a .mp4 format and you all get the exclusive viewing, just click to watch below.  

3D Mapping

This weeks lab took us into 3D Mapping and the various aspects of it.  ESRI offers a great online course for 3D Visualization using ArcScene and ArcGlobe.  If you have not taken this course before and 3D mapping is something you are interested in, then I would highly recommend you taking that course.  It gives the quick, down and dirty of how to accomplish these tasks using the ArcGIS suite. 

In this lab we focused on 5 sections using ArcScene.  The first section taught us how to set base heights for raster and feature data.  This was done using Crater Lake as a backdrop and adding the lake, rivers, watch towers, and land use data over the top of elevation data.  Here is how mine turned out:

The second module taught us how to apply vertical exaggeration to a map.  Minnesota is a fairly flat state, especially in the section we worked with.  This is what made it such a great candidate to apply vertical exaggeration to so we could see the features.  The picture below is Minnesota with about 23 times exaggeration to make the features stand out. 

 

The third module showed us how to use illumination to highlight certain features.  Santa Barbara Island was the backdrop and I set the sun to be coming from the south and not much over the horizon, about 9 degrees.  You can see how this highlighted the cliff face in this picture:

The next two exercises focused on using extrusions to create 3D buildings.  The first picture shows buildings and wells.  You could actually see the depth of the wells if you looked underneath the map.  How cool is that?  The second picture uses the dollar value of the specific parcels to illustrate which ones were worth more and whether they were commercial, residential, or industrial lands.

After completing the ESRI lesson, we moved on to making 3D buildings for Boston.  This started off in ArcGIS to create the data we would need to make the building extrusions in ArcScene.  Once that data was created, we moved to ArcScene and made the buildings there using the extrusion process.  Then that data was saved in as a .kml file to later be imported into Google Earth.  The picture below shows the buildings that were created in ArcGIS/ArcScene and then imported into Google Earth. 

Overall this was an interesting lab.  All of the work we have done over the semester has been in 2D and it was somewhat refreshing to take a different look at it this week.  I can definitely see some pros to 3D mapping in the fields of flood modeling and utilities planning.  The ability of seeing how different water levels may affect a 3D modeled city or how/where different utilities are placed in a 3D environment is definitely useful.  A couple things people need to be aware of though are 1. Be aware of where you are facing in your 3D maps and 2. Know that sometimes 3D maps are distorted to show you their message or enhance features.  The data doesn't change, only the perception of what it is.  

Dot Dot Goose! Dot Mapping Southern Florida

Despite what you may be thinking, dot mapping is not a game of connect the dots to make a map.  Dot mapping, in fact, is a way to display conceptual data what is not uniform throughout a given area.  It allows us to to visualize patterns that may occur in the data.  So how does one come up with a schema for using the dots?  Well, in the map below we use dots to represent a set number of people.  In our case, dots equal 10,000 people on the map.  I also bound the dots to only occur within urbanized zones because it doesn't make much sense to see a dot of 10k people in the middle of Lake Okeechobee does it?  So here is the map and I will later discuss how I made it:

So the map in general was pretty easy to make....once I got past ArcGIS constantly crashing.  So here are the steps I took to make it:

1. The majority of the work took place in ArcGIS with some final polishing in Adobe Illustrator.  
2. First I added the south Florida shapefile to my TOC.
3. Next the population data spreadsheet was added to the TOC and then joined to the Florida shapefile.  This allowed me to access the population data I needed to create the dot map you see above.
4. The next step was to create the dot symbology for the map.  This was done in the symbology tab for the Florida shapefile's property window.  Under the Quantities section, Dot density was selected and the Population field was used to create the Dot Map.
5. The Dot Value was set to 10,000 and the Dot Size was set to 2.6.  This took many iterations to figure out what seemed to look best.  
6. Next, other map layers (water and urban) were added along with the essential map elements.  
7. The water layer ended up causing multiple crashes of ArcGIS.  To combat this I turned the Dot layer into its own map file and kept the rest on the original map file.  
8. With both map files ready, I exported them both to a .AI (Adobe Illustrator) format.  Later I would merge these two in Illustrator to finalize the map.  
9. From here work shifted to Illustrator.  Both maps were merged by copying the dot layer and then using a paste-in-place function on the other layers.  This worked out great as you can see above.  
10. The final pieces to this map were creating the legend and adding a simple drop shadow to the map.  

And there you have it.  I hope you enjoyed the map.  What do you think and how else could I have applied the dot size and values to make this map even better?  Let me know in the comments below!