Sometimes I realize that in the amount of time I’ve spent looking for detailed data, I could have just created it. Often, water polygons at the scale you need for your mega-detailed map just aren’t available. Here’s how to draw a complex polygon in ArcGIS Pro super easily. And, for giggles, how you can style … Continue reading Draw complex polygons in ArcGIS Pro, super fast
If you aren’t doing anything else on the allotted 2.5 hours of January 24, 2025, then consider tuning in to this Women in GIS workshop where I’ll share the process (and all the data and documents) for making this migration map. The cost is free, unless you count the 2.5 hours of life you’ll invest, … Continue reading Women in GIS Workshop
Here’s how to make the drought map used in the Drought Aware app. This video covers creating a custom imagery basemap, modified to best support thematic data, and a styling method for the overlain drought polygons so they tint the imagery a color based on severity and have a cumulative shadow appearance to give a … Continue reading How to make this drought map in ArcGIS Online
You may have heard that “all maps lie” and that’s right (also, here’s some required reading). Each map is a collection of compromises, whether they’re geomatic (your projection and scale choices), editorial (your choice of subject and what you’ve chosen to show and not show), and thematic (how you choose to show quantitative information). There … Continue reading Three Maps & the Truth
It’s that time of year when geographers the world over gather together in, let’s be honest, just slightly awkward office holiday parties. We dedicate 82-86% of our mental capacities to socializing with our colleagues over deserts and drinks, while the remaining 14-16% remain lasered right in on the massive geoprocessing task that is currently running … Continue reading Make these ornaments please
They say it’s the mappiest day of the year, but here’s a short video we made for GIS Day way back at the mappiest place on earth (aka the Esri User Conference) back in July! November felt like forever away, but you know how all that goes. Thanks to Jo Ann Prichniewski for coordinating, Christie … Continue reading GIS Day 2024
A vignette is a darkening (or lightening) of the edges of a composition, to subtly frame it and draw the eye in to the middle. It’s an old photographer’s darkroom trick. Lucky for us, I’ve spent many hours in the darkroom and have grown to appreciate the charm and effectiveness of a good vignette. Here’s … Continue reading Vignettes for the Win!
There are lots of reasons why cartographers use dashed lines in their maps. Sometimes there are a lot of different sorts of lines going around and it’s the best way to differentiate between different categories of things. Or we can embed meaning into them, like a dashed line representing something unofficial, impermanent, or disputed. Whatever … Continue reading Dashing Maps
The World Imagery Basemap is a lovely resource spanning the Earth in all directions at all scales. If you want to add a level of context you can always add a reference overlay. But what about baking a reference overlay into the imagery in a way that makes it look, like, sort of 3D?! Is it even … Continue reading Boost the Human Footprint in Imagery
Of course Alaska and Hawaii are glorious places, beloved by all for their lovely inhabitants and majestic natural environs. It would be an error of omission should they not appear in a map of the United States, but it would also be a shame to shoe-horn them in looking sad with an inappropriate coordinate system. … Continue reading Add Multiple Maps to One Layout
