Tag: map

New Christmas present: GPS receiver and logger

December 25, 2009 / / 0 Comments

A bike ride around my dad’s neighborhood.

I got a GPS receiver and logger for Christmas. It’s a GlobalStar DG-100. More on the device later. Basically it records the location of every place it goes. It can even give you live, real time information; so far I’ve got this working in Windows, but not yet in Mac.

The GlobalStar DG-100. Not mine, from roland.

This map shows a bike ride around the neighborhood. I mistakenly set the device to only record points every 5 seconds. Obviously, in a bike, car or train, you can go far in 5 seconds and the route won’t match the road.

I want it mainly to use in automatically geotagging my photos, but I also want to use it to record my bicycling routes to track statistics like distance and speed.

A map of buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park

November 9, 2009 / / 0 Comments

I would like to hear feedback on the design of this map I made for school. It shows the location of buildings in Oak Park, Illinois, by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

The map is accurate; the building listing is from Oak Park Tourist. Feel free to print out the map and go on your own walking tour!

I created this map based on data provided to me by my GIS for Planners class instructors. Also in the assignment they gave limited background on who is commissioning the map, who will use the map, and the information it should describe and display. As the class has progressed, the assignments have become more open ended.

However, in making maps, there are always certain elements you cannot do without. Map makers include a scale bar, north arrow, and source information so that their map appears trustworthy. A legend is most often required, but many times maps can be designed intuitively so that users do not require a legend. I have attempted to design this map like that: I excluded a legend. Map users should be able to discern that the black and gray lines represent streets and also that the larger map with the gray background is a zoomed in portion of the smaller map.

I have posted other maps to my Flickr that you can also browse, some I made because of assignments, and others for personal interest and practice.