Map Club — WORKSHOP (Part II) — Introduction to Mapping in D3.js

In its final session of the semester, Map Club embarked upon the second half of a two-part workshop focused on D3.js, a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. This time, participants focused on learning how to render a simple SVG map in the browser, which could serve as the basis for visualizing custom values. Beginning with a CSV […]

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Map Club — WORKSHOP (Part I) — D3.js

In its second to last session, Map Club took on the first part of a guided introduction to D3.js. D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. This workshop, focusing on the general setup and visualization capabilities of the library, led participants through the basics of SVG, data types, and generating simple shapes from custom arrays. […]

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Map Club — Cartogram Hexmaps with Tilegrams

The latest session of Map Club took a data journalism bent: last Friday, we focused on creating cartogram hexmaps with Tilegrams, a generator by data visualization studio Pitch Interactive. The tool enables users to quickly create proportionate hex-based maps of the United States using custom or built-in data, and export generated maps to both SVG and topojson. Tilegrams provides […]

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Map Club — WORKSHOP — Introduction to QGIS

Last Friday, Map Club embarked upon its second workshop of the semester. This time, we focused on QGIS, a free and open source geographic information system that offers powerful tools for data editing, viewing, and analysis. Participants learned how to import shapefiles into the interface, explore data using the attribute table, and visualize land use in Manhattan with public building footprint data.  From […]

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Map Club — Dynamic Mapping with OpenLayers

The latest session of Map Club focused on OpenLayers, a high-performance library for rendering geographic information in the browser. OpenLayers enables users to visualize a diverse range of geospatial data formats, while offering intuitive links to external web-based mapping resources such as CARTO, OpenStreetMap, Stamen, and D3.js. Participants explored OpenLayers functionality for importing KML and GeoJSON data, experimented with linking to […]

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Map Club — Interactive Maps with Mapzen

Last week, Map Club revisited Tangram, the powerful open-source renderer for Mapzen. (We first explored Mapzen over the summer.) Mapzen is an open, sustainable, and accessible mapping platform that offers intricate control over the design of web-based maps. Centered on a map of Manhattan, attendees referenced the comprehensive documentation page to alter the drawing style of Tangram’s vector tile service. […]

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Map Club — WORKSHOP — Interactive Maps with CARTO

Map Club’s most recent meeting was a change of pace from the usual self-paced rhythm of weekly sessions. In the first of three workshops occurring throughout this semester, we walked through a guided introduction to CARTO. CARTO (formerly CartoDB) is a unified web mapping and visualization engine that facilitates the creation of interactive maps. This workshop covered the process of downloading data, importing data into CARTO, filtering and […]

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Map Club — Simple Maps with geojson.io

Map Club spent last Friday’s session exploring geojson.io, a simple, open-source editor for map data. geojson.io seeks to be a quick tool for creating, viewing, and sharing maps. Compatible with a number of different data formats, the interface of the tool offers basic styling functionality, as well as enables Github users to turn any map into a shareable secret Gist for […]

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Map Club — Dynamic Mapping with Cartagen

Map Club commenced its first meeting of Fall 2016 by experimenting with Cartagen, a vector-based framework for rendering maps in HTML5. Cartagen was originally developed by a research team at the MIT Center for Civic Media. One goal of Map Club is to explore the less populous corners of GIS, legacy projects included. Though Cartagen has stood the test […]

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