Mapping Center

Hi, folks— I have never blogged before so forgive me if I ramble on too much. I have been working with ESRI to convert ideas and snippets of code from my past work presented at the ESRI International User Conferences into a usable set of tools for all to use. This is a great honor indeed, and I thank them for the opportunity. My ideas on landscape presentation have now taken on a life of their own as a set of tools in an ArcToolbox that you can download from Mapping Center. I hope others will find them easy and fun to use. To learn more about them you can read two blog entries that were posted earlier: Introducing the ArcGIS Bump Map Tools and Symbolizing the Bump Map. Read More...

We’ve posted our recently revised Color Ramps version 2.0 styles on our site to be more suitable for your use. Our impetus was we needed something new to work on a project with the topic of Washington Landforms and it is specific to printed maps. This is a map that we will talk about in our "One Minute Cartographer" session at the ESRI User Conference this year. This presentation will be posted on the Mapping Center - Other Resources page after the conference. The color ramp used on this map was selected from the PNW_x set in the new Hypsometry style. (PNW stands for "Pacific Northwest".) Read More...

After seeing my poster that described using dot maps to show soils at the AAG conference in Boston a few weeks ago, Charlie Frye suggested that I write this entry to describe my maps and the technique used to create them.  This seemed especially appropriate given the recent entries in this blog about dot maps. Read More...

Last week we received an interesting question on Ask a Cartographer about how to create tapered stream or river line symbols. Tapered symbols are actually a bit more complicated than what is shown to the left; those lines are proportionally scaled symbols that are based on an attribute value. Notice that each stream is a single line width.  Tapered symbols would actually change widths along the length of a given feature, giving a very smooth effect. Tapering is more useful for depicting flows that range widely in value or magnitude, whereas proportional symbols are usually an excellent solution for symbolizing rivers and streams. Read More...

Cynthia Brewer’s new book titled Designed Maps: A Sourcebook for GIS Users is a companion piece designed to compliment the highly successful Designing Better Maps: A Guide for GIS Users published by ESRI Press in 2005. The goal of the book is to offer a graphics-intensive presentation of published maps, providing cartographic details that will prompt GIS users to think about their own maps and how to improve them. Read More...