20 replies to this topic

[frax]

Anyone creating cartograms (a.k.a. anamorphic maps) here? I am interested in creating a few of these, and looking into possibilities...

I saw that there was a few ArcView 3.x plugins on ArcScripts that I could use, and I found some java web thingie, and then this, the latter seems to be the best (from the quality).

But it would also be interesting to create the more "block cartogram" type.

[frax]

I just tried the Gastner s/w, and it compiled fine under cygwin (under windows), so I might use that. I just tried it with the sample data -- I need to look into some other data for some more thorough testing.

[ELeFevre]

I've created cartograms using graph paper and a ruler. Your idea sounds much better

[Claude]

please let us know how it goes and post a sample when you're done. i've been wanting to try those since the NY Times ran their swanky states and electoral votes map during the last presidential election. if you didn't catch that, i recommend searching their archives for it.

[Hans van der Maarel]

Quite related to this discussion I think:

Survey of the use of cartograms

This is a survey into the use of cartograms done by a Ph.D student from Sheffield University.

[frax]

I'd be interested to hear what the conclusions from the survey are. But I don't think the examples and the questions were very good though...

[Hans van der Maarel]

I'll send an invitation to the person who's doing the survey, see if she'll want to join us here.

[Nick Springer]

I'd be interested to hear what the conclusions from the survey are. But I don't think the examples and the questions were very good though...

I agree. The questions were loaded in many cases and most were not answerable by simple multiple choice. Too much dependance on Cynthia Brewer's map color application to generate generic graphics.

[frax]

Cartograms galore! I just found this link from the Map Room blog. Some dutch guys that has specialized in Cartograms, seems like it is for a national (local?) newspaper or something.

Almost too much of them, but they are very interesting (better on their own, than in a big collection perhaps). It is more of a gimmick, and doesn't always add more information than a chart would....

Anyways -- these cartograms are beatuifully done -- with a very nice/subtle distortion of the shape and position (which are very important) of the countries. I suspect that these are done "by hand" (adjusting an distorting the map in the graphics program) rather than through an algorithm. I e-mailed the guys asking about the methodology, so we'll see what they say!

Mapping Worlds




(perhaps this post should be moved to the map gallery... ?)

[frax]

claude, ill post an example with the Gastner et al software that I prepared, it will be in the map gallery

[Hans van der Maarel]

Resurrecting this for an interesting link: Mapresso

[franciscocartographer]

I have worked previously with cartograms. It is one of my favorite graphic forms to read but difficult to construct. The easiest way to make them is by using previously written code (as ‘frax’ demonstrated) like Gastner’s (http://www-personal.....edu/~mgastner/) or the Mapresso applet, but the really good looking ones are made manually using graph paper, or grids in Illustrator, CorelDraw, etc.

Another option are Dorling cartograms, which are the easiest to create but not as readable, in my opinion. Golden Software’s MapViewer can make them.

[franciscocartographer]

Any luck with their methodology for creating their cartograms? they are very nice.

Cartograms galore! I just found this link from the Map Room blog. Some dutch guys that has specialized in Cartograms, seems like it is for a national (local?) newspaper or something.

Almost too much of them, but they are very interesting (better on their own, than in a big collection perhaps). It is more of a gimmick, and doesn't always add more information than a chart would....

Anyways -- these cartograms are beatuifully done -- with a very nice/subtle distortion of the shape and position (which are very important) of the countries. I suspect that these are done "by hand" (adjusting an distorting the map in the graphics program) rather than through an algorithm. I e-mailed the guys asking about the methodology, so we'll see what they say!

[DaveB]

There's also a tool Eric Wolf created for ArcGIS 9.x here:cartogram script for ArcGIS 9.x

[frax]

fransisco, one would get very good results with the gastner program if one opened up some space here and there. A bit tricky to do easily in GIS. For instance one could separate africa from middle east with a "rift". Same with South/North America.