Maps and more

We’ll do a survey of maps and map types, including a lecture that’s old but good. If we have time, we’ll make sure you know how to make tables look classy, which is a lifelong skill and something that can make you look surprisingly professional.

Housekeeping

• Project timeline. Are you on track for success?
• Critique

Lecture

How about more lecture than you’re used to. It can be quick and painless.

You Don’t Need To Make Maps From Scratch

Your goal is to make a map and table (complete with a readin and headline) of the data we cleaned in a previous class about Chicago guns, both on a map and in a table. This might help get started. Save it locally and call it maps-homework.html.

<style type="text/css">

    /*css goes here*/

    body {
        width:750px;
        margin:20px auto;
        font-family:georgia;
    }

</style>

<h1>This is my homework assignment</h1>

<p class="readout">This will be my readout</p>

<div class="map-section">
<!-- map work to go in here -->
</div>

<div class="table-section">
<!-- map work to go in here -->
</div>

<script type="text/javascript">

    // javascript goes here.

</script>

You can pick from the menu of maps below, presented roughly in order of difficulty. You might need to do some formatting on your data. Arrange yourselves by preference.

State Level

• Kevin doesn’t like Google fusion tables, but they are really easy to make.

• You could try on D3 + Leaflet. These are good when you really want users to be able to have control or find a specific place. For a state level map, this is probably not the best solution, but meh.

• Stately is really lightweight and great at small maps. Labeling them is a challenge, though, and you don’t get a lot of interactivity for free.

• Paint By Numbers This works great! (?) For a bonus, see if you can get it to use different colors.

County level (more advanced)

• In case of emergency.

• D3 demo

• Bubbles, if you prefer.

Table

We’ll apply the principles of this gif to the Chicago data. Your goal is to include an HTML table of guns per state in decreasing order that visually highlights Mississippi. The official spec on tables may help, and so might Mr. Data Converter. For styling, here is a nice list of things you can be inspired by.

Projects