Cartographica 1.2.8 ready for Mountain Lion and Retina Display

ClueTrust is happy to announce today the immediate availability of Cartographica 1.2.8.   This release fixes a number of small bugs and includes compatibility and feature fixes for both the Retina Display MacBook Pros and Mountain Lion.

Full release notes are available on the macgis.com site.

The new Retina Display MacBook Pros are gorgeous, and we're happy to say that things are really looking good on those displays, and with the advent of Mountain Lion's new Gatekeeper system, we have increased security by implementing Apple's new signature system to show that Cartographica comes from us, so you won't be warned about Unknown software.

The update is available now for current users using Check for Updates… from the Cartographica menu, or by downloading at the download page (starts automatically).

Mapping Idea Tolerance in U.S. Cities

Richard Florida is the well-known author of the book "The Creative Class" which describes the rise and the importance of a socio-economic class of individuals that Florida believes drives economic and social development. According to a Wikipedia, the creative class is made up of two separate groups of workers that make up about 30 percent of the U.S. workforce. The first of these groups is the Super-Creative Core: This group comprises about 12 percent of all U.S. jobs. It includes a wide range of occupations (e.g. science, engineering, education, computer programming, research), with arts, design, and media workers forming a small subset. Florida considers those belonging to this group to “fully engage in the creative process” (Florida, 2002). The Super-Creative Core is considered innovative, creating commercial products and consumer goods. The primary job function of its members is to be creative and innovative. “Along with problem solving, their work may entail problem finding” (Florida, 2002). The second group in the creative class is the Creative Professionals: These professionals are the classic knowledge-based workers and include those working in healthcare, business and finance, the legal sector, and education. They “draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems” using higher degrees of education to do so (Florida, 2002).

Part of Florida's Creative Class philosophy is that those people who largely make up the creative class are most commonly found in cities. Because of this cities are central to economic and social growth and a hugely important moving forward in the future. In an article posted today in the Atlantic, Florida has used his team of experts to create a new index that measures how tolerant cities are of other people's ideas and innovations. The article, which can be found at this website, describes Florida's three T's of innovation which are technology, talent, and tolerance. His most recent article shows a chloropleth map of U.S. metros with color shades indicating levels of tolerance within each city. According to the article the tolerance index "ranks U.S. metros according to three key variables—the share of immigrants or foreign-born residents, the Gay Index (the concentration of gays and lesbians), and the Integration Index, which tracks the level of segregation between ethnic and racial groups." See below for a screenshot of Dr. Florida's Tolerance index.

Unfortunately, the article does not provide a link to the Tolerance Index dataset, but it does provide a short list of the top 20 most tolerant cities in the United States. We can use this list of the top 20 most tolerant cities as an example of how to quickly create our own map from a list such as the one provided. The first step in creating your map of the 20 most tolerant cities is to use a spreadsheet application to create a dataset that you can import into Cartographica. This requires a bit of data entry, but it's fairly painless. Once the data are entered save the file in .csv format. I provide an image below of my spreadsheet.

To create the chloropleth map of the U.S. metros you need to have a basemap that contains the U.S. metro areas of interest. To download a shapefile containing the metropolitan statistical areas visit this U.S. Census Bureau webpage. Once on the webpage, under the Nation-Based Shapefiles, select Metropolitan/Micropolitan Statistical Areas, and then click on the Downloaded Selected Files button. After the file is downloaded import the file by choosing File > Import Vector Data. To provide more context to the map add a Live Map as well by choosing File > Add Live Map. Be sure the Metro Areas map is on top of the Live Map in the Layer stack. See my map below for the full set of U.S. MSAs.

To join the top 20 Tolerance Index scores to the MSA map choose File > Import Table Data. This will bring up the import file window. Select the Join tab in the top right, change the Target Layer to the US MSA Map layer, change the Map To option to Name, check the box under Key for the Metro field, and then click on the import button. I provide an image below to show the set up. 

Because the .csv file you imported does not have data for all of the MSAs in the MSA file you can use Cartographica's Filter Bar to identify only those cities for which we have Tolerance Index data. Click on the magnifying glass inside of the Filter Bar and then select the Tolerance Index Score field. Type in 0 in the filter bar, a small window will appear that allows you to choose selection criterion. Select the option "is greater than". This will select only those cities that have values greater than 0 for the Tolerance index score. Notice the number of MSA visible on the map is much fewer than the original map. See the map below for an example. 

Finally, use the identify tool to select all of the remaining MSAs and then choose Layer > Create Layer from Selection. This will automatically add a new layer to the layer stack that contains only the top 20 tolerance index cities. Rename the new layer "Top 20 Tolerance Index Cities". You can create your own cholopleth map of the top 20 cities by double-clicking on the Top 20 layer in the layer stack, click on the + button five times to add five categories and then select a classification scheme (I used Equal Interval) by clicking on the gear box. Add a color scheme by choosing Window > Show Color Palettes and then click and drag the color ramp to the table in the Layer Styles Window to add the color scheme. Also, you can add a legend by choosing Window > Show Legend.  I provide an example of my final map below. 

 

Exploring Sea Level Change with Cartographica

The Pacific Institute has recently released a set of GIS data on measures of Sea Level change on the West Coast. This is a topic that has been in the news recently as scientists are investigating changing sea levels along coasts around the world. We are always trying to point our customers to new sources of data that they can use in their own professional work, or for the purpose of exploring the world around them with publicly available data. To download the Pacific Institute data visit the GIS Data Downloads section. Notice when you go to the website there are a number of files available that cover many different topics. Below I describe the methods for importing and exploring the data using Cartographica.

The first step for exploring these data is adding a Live Map, which we will use as the basemap for all of the Pacific Institute's data. To add a Live Map choose File > Add Live Map.

To create the following maps download the Dataset described as "Areas inundated by unimpeded Pacific coastal flooding under a scenario of 1.4-meter (55-inch) sea-level rise." To download the data click on the Ca_coast yr2100_flood.zip file. The file will automatically download. Once the data are downloaded save them to an desired location and then choose File > Import Vector Data… and open the shape file. When the data are imported they will have a name that is not so descriptive and will be colored white. Rename the layer so that it was a bit more descriptive. Rename the layer 55 Inch Sea Level Rise by clicking on the layer in the layer stack and retyping the layer name. Change the color to red to make the layer more visible on the map. To change the color double-click on the 55 Inch Sea Level Rise layer in the layer stack and then change the fill color to red by clicking on the fill box and then using the color wheel to choose a redish color. See the image below for an example of my map.

In addition to the geographic data, the files also include attribute data that provides a description of the locations at risk for flooding. To view the attribute file view the data in the data viewer at the bottom of the Cartographica window. Notice that the at-risk areas are named by which county they are in and there is data on the area and length of the individual locations.

For the next map, download the available data files that contain vulnerable public service buildings. Download the files for: vulnerable hospitals, schools, fire stations, and police stations. Once the files are imported change the names and color schemes to make a more effective map. Rename the layers Vulnerable Hospitals, Vulnerable Schools, etc. To make the symbols a bit more exciting you can use publicly available images of symbols representing each type of public service. To do this, go to Google Images to search for each type of symbol. For example, to find the school symbol use the search term "School Symbols". Once you find the image you would like to use double-click on the Vulnerable Schools layer in the layer stack and then simply click and drag the school symbol image into the symbol box within the layer styles window. Once the image is placed in the symbol box make sure to uncheck the stroke box, otherwise the image will be outlined and it will be hard to see. I provide an image below as an example.

See my final map below for an example of the point symbols for public service buildings at risk of coastal flooding in California. The image below shows the San Francisco Bay Area. I should mention that each of the public service building files also has accompanying attribute data that provides more information about the locations of each of the points.

Because you have a points and polygons added to the map you can use Cartographica's Count Points in Polygons tool to determine which of the flood prone areas have the most at risk public service buildings. To count points in polygon first select the 55 Inch Sea Level Rise layer in the layer stack, and then choose Tools > Count Points in Polygons. At this point a new window will appear, choose to count the number of at risk schools within each of the areas at risk of flooding. Once the count is complete you can see the number of at risk schools in each polygon by looking in the data viewer window. Another way you can check the number of at-risk schools in each polygon is by creating a chloropleth map. To create a chloropleth map double-click on the 55 Inch Sea Level Rise layer in the layer stack to bring up the layer styles window. Change the Based on option to Vulnerable Schools, click on the + button five times to add five categories, click on the gear box and choose distribute with Natural Breaks (Jenks). Finally, select a color scheme by choosing Window > Show Color Palettes, select a color scheme and then click and drag it to the table within the layer styles window. This will automatically apply the color scheme to the distributed values. I provide an image of the layer styles window and my final map below. 

As you can see from my map below it appears that the Orange County area in Southern California has some coastal areas that have many schools at risk of flooding if the sea level were to rise by 55 inches. 

Streamlining Workflow when Adding Features

When creating maps that involve drawing new features such as points, lines, and polygons it is often the case that you may want to create several new features that are exactly the same. Essentially, you may want to create identical features without having to re-draw each one. Cartographica has multiple functions that allow you to perform this task. I will illustrate with an example using polygons.  

There is a pavilion structure in downtown Lexington, Ky that is used for various events, one being its hosting of the local Farmer's Market on specific days throughout the week. In Lexington, one of the goals of the local Farmer's Market is to create a permanent location that would include multiple outdoor structures like the pavilion along with other features that perform other functions such as bathrooms, offices, etc. In this scenario I wanted to know if there was a downtown location that could fit several structures of similar size to the already present pavilion venue to potentially host a permanent Farmer's Market. So My first task was creating a new polygon that outlined the shape and size of the already existing pavilion location. To do this I first added a live map by choosing File > Add Live Map. This gives me the base image to use to draw the new polygon. See the image below of the pavilion that we are going to use to trace the new polygon. 

To draw the new polygon the first step is to click on the + button at the bottom of the layer stack. This will add a new layer that you can use to make the polygon. Once the new layer is added to the layer stack choose Edit > Add Feature. This will give you the option to choose the type of layer you would like to create. For this example we are going to create a new polygon layer. Select polygon from the window. See the image below for the window. 

At this point the background image will dim a bit and you will be able to create the new polygon. To draw the new polygon hold down the option key and click to place points in locations that will draw the appropriate polygon shape. Once the points are in the appropriate location hit the enter key. See the following image for an example. 

Now that you have the new polygon drawn, rename the layer in the layer stack to a more fitting name. For this example I named the new polygon Pavilion Polygon (Clever, huh?). Also, select the Bing Live layer in the layer stack and then under the Layer menu check the Include in Map Extent option. This will allow us to expand the extent of the map which will be helpful on the next step. When the map zooms outs, choose View > Zoom to Layer, this wlll automatically return you to the layer features you have drawn. Finally, move the Pavilion Polygon layer above the Bing Live layer in the Layer stack. We want our new polygon on top of the base map. 

There are multiple methods for creating identical polygons features depending on what your goals are. The duplicate function which is used to create additional polygons on the same layer. This is most often of use when you are interested in creating features that share the same geometry (and/or attributes). The second way to make identical polygons is the "create layer from selected feature option". This is used when you want to create shapes on a new layer that are identical to shapes on the old layer. Most often, this is when "clipping" items from one layer to another, but it can also be used to create a subset of features for purposes of planning. Finally, there is the copy/paste method that is used for moving data between layers. Often, you will use this mechanism when you are trying to relocate things onto another layer. To make these features more clear I will demonstrate each within the example mentioned above. 

Duplicate Function:

To create an Identical polygon on the same layer select the previously created polygon by using the identify tool. Next, choose Edit > Duplicate. Next, use the identify tool to select the duplicated polygon (hint: it's right on top of the old one) and drag it to a new location. Notice in the image below we still only have one Pavilion layer in the layer stack, but a new polygon is now shown in the open field to the South.

Create Layer from Selection:

To create a new layer that contains an identical polygon select the original pavilion polygon feature by using the identify tool. Next, choose Layer > Create Layer from Selection. This will automatically add a new layer to the layer stack that contains an identical set of selected polygons (again, the new polygon is directly on top of the original pavilion polygon). Use the identify tool to select the new polygon layer and then choose Edit > Edit Selected Feature and then click and drag the polygon to its new location. Notice in the image below I have place the new polygon layer next to the one from the duplicate step in the open field to the South.

 

 Copy and Paste:

To copy and paste features from one layer to another first select the pavilion polygon layer in the layer stack. Next, use the identify tool to select the original pavilion polygon. Next, choose Edit > Copy and then select the Pavilion Polygon Selection layer in the layer stack and then choose Edit > Paste. This will add an identical polygon to the Pavilion Polygon selection layer. Next, use the identify tool to select the copied feature (again, it's on top of the original pavilion polygon feature) and then choose Edit > Edit Selected Feature and then click and drag the copied polygon to its new location. Again, notice that the polygon has been moved to the open field to the South. The result of this method is that we now have two separate layers that each contain two identical copies of the original pavilion polygon. 

These features are all very useful for creating identical polygon features in the ways shown above. However, in performing the tasks above you have also completed a secondary task that deserves mentioning. This secondary task is the addition of feature attributes. Notice in the image below that the Pavilion Polygon selection layer has two rows which represent the two polygons on that layer. We can add additional columns of data to the polygon layers using several functions available in Cartographica. To add the Name column shown in the image below choose Layer > Add Columns. Next, choose Window > Show Layer Info, this will bring up a small window where you can change the name of the New Column to an appropriate name. To add the data to the new column simply click inside of the attribute window and type in the desired values. There are many other ways for adding additional data found under the Tools menu, or like we have seen here you can manually add data to your dataset. Depending on what your goals are Cartographica has a bevy of options that can help streamline your workflow, and help you produce professional quality maps and datasets.   

Georeferencing Detailed Cold War Era Maps using Cartographica

According to a recent article on Burrito Justice, during the Cold War the Russian government spent a lot of time and effort to create detailed maps of the many places in the world as potential targets for their military. The maps detail many different aspects such as elevation, water ways, and even streets that would be passable by tanks and other military vehicles. Now that the Cold War is over we can talk about the absurdity of it all and enjoy the hard work that the Russians put forth to make a series of really nice maps. 

The best location to find these maps for download are at maps.vlasenko.net. There are options to download maps at five different scales 1:50000, 1:100000, 1:200000, 1:500000, 1:1000000. The difficulty with finding the right map is that there is no good reference map for determining where the listed maps are located in the world. The author of the Burrito Justice article mentions that the 1:200000 map filed as J-10-22 is the San Francisco Bay area. So to use the same map in Cartographica, I downloaded the map, and then did some work georeferencing the image for use with Cartographica. 

To georeference an image the first step is to add a base map to compare the raster file to. For this, I used the Live Maps available in Cartographica. Choose File > Add Live Map to perform this action. 

Next, Zoom in to the San Francisco Bay area. Next, Choose File > Import Raster Data. This will import the downloaded map of San Franscisco. Notice there is a yellow triangle next to the raster file in the Layer Stack. This indicates that the layer is missing a coordinate reference system. You should see the window below after you import the raster data and click on the yellow triangle.

 

To set the coordinate reference system click on Set CRS. Because the Live Map is in the WGS84 Psuedo Mercator CRS we want to match the Russian raster file to the same CRS. To do this select the WGS84-Psuedo Mercator CRS and then click on the Set button. See the following image for an example.

Next, choose Layer > Include in Map Extent. This will allow you to see the entire Live Map rather than focusing only on the recently added Raster data (which right now isn't in the right place). 

Next, zoom in to the San Francisco Bay area using the zoom tool. Once you have zoomed in in to the San Francisco Bay area click on the Russian San Francisco layer in the layer stack and then choose Edit > Georeference Image. The Georeferencing panel will appear. 

Click on Fit Display to automatically move and resize the imported San Francisco map to the San Francisco Bay area that we have just zoomed to. Next, click on Flip Vertical to flip the raster image upright. The image below shows about what your map should look like. 

Next, we can use the Ground Control Points to adjust to location of the  Russian map to the underlying Live Map that we are using as reference. To do this, click on the Ground Control Points tab and the move the points to locations that help match the Russian map to the Live Map.

Hint: While doing this focus on geographic features that are easily identified and match them up. San Francisco has a unique pensula shape which is easy to see, but also there are many bridges and coast lines to help make the georeferencing process as accurate as possible. Also, as you attempt to match the two layers adjust the layer transparency so that you can get clear looks at what you are matching up. See the image below for the more accurately placed Russian Map. 

Once you have the map accurately placed you're finished! See a my final map below.