Mapping Center

Bad maps, unlike bad press, do not garner the sort of attention that can be capitalized upon.  Bad maps are strong impediments to gaining mind share, and represent a significant risk to depleting mind share.  Why? Bad maps are a visual, i.e., strong communication method, and convey incompetence and poor judgment.

To many of us this is obvious, but we consistently hear from people who are professionals, who have to make maps. Read More...

I do most of my data automation in Python--I'm no expert with Python, but I learned the basics a few years ago and that's served me well. One of the tasks I frequently use Python for is automating the management of attributes, i.e., adding, deleting, and calculating fields.  I learned VB prior to Python, so I had always used VBScript as my basis for field calculations.  Recently, I learned that doing field calculations in Python scripts was not Read More...

Occasionally I'm asked to come into a project to introduce some cartographic thinking into work that ordinarily might not have much. I spent most of last week with some folks who know water utility GIS. I helped by designing a status map, and took some of that work to make some improvements to an editing map and a mobile map. The status map needed to be a multi-scale base map that showed the water network data (mains, valves, meters, etc.), and the status of assets and water service.  Many different people within a water department, local government, or even the public might see the map. This map had to be functional, attractive, and free of obvious  errors and awkward symbol or labeling choices. Read More...

From time to time I hear from users or see postings indicating that they find the various states data frames can have a bit confusing.

Data frames on the layout can be active, selected, focused or some combination (or none) of the above. Read More...

It is often useful to use a hillshade raster to show terrain to support other information in a map such as an analytical surface like population density, or a thematic overlay like soils. There is one significant problem with this; however, which is that the shading from the hillshade modifies the colors of the main information layer making them artificially dark or washed out. That makes map reading and applying what you learn from a legend a frustrating task. For example, the legend for the map on the left is shown at the right--it's hard to figure anything out with so many similar colors in the legend and the added effect of varied gray tones within each soil polygon on the map. (One way you can help your map readers is to Read More...