GEOG 413 - Computer Cartography

Lab 7: Cartograms.

The objective of this lab is to introduce you to Cartograms. Often, they are little more than gimmicks, however, at times, they are a very good method for displaying spatial relationships.

First off, wander by worldmapper and play around with this site a bit. First, click on the Map Categories page and check out how population has changed between 1500 and 2300 (projected). In a paragraph, describe how population changes. Critique using cartograms to display these changes (as opposed to a more typical choropleth map). Surf around a bit. Find two other data sets which show change in something - your choice. Explain whether or not cartograms are a good choice - and, most importantly, why or why not.

Next, pop over to http://arcscripts.esri.com/details.asp?dbid=14090 . Here you can download an arcscript that will create cartograms. Read the documentation, dowload it, unzip, read the readme, etc. Play with it a bit!. There is a ton of data on the J drive, so no worries about finding shapefiles to mess with. Pick three datasets to map. At any scale, from anywhere. Pick something you're interested in seeing. Tidy up the three as maps (the usual map elements, etc) and print them out. Color or not as you think appropriate.

For those of you who have not had GIS classes, work with someone who has on the arc portion only. Write on your maps who you worked with, if you did.

Finally, everyone, separately, needs to do a writeup about this program and how it works. Think readings - wht you liked, didn't, and why. Improvements? etc. About a page.

So, to turn in - answers to all questions italicized above and three cartograms.

Due date: Monday, 17 May. 4 points.

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