FlowingData Forums » Data Visualization

Looking For US-by-County Vector Friendly Maps

Started 2 years ago by matthias / 6 posts

  1. matthias
    Member
    Posted 2 years ago #

    I'm a Silverlight/WPF developer who has recently gotten interested in visualization (I did a goofy little viz about the number of times the New York Times mentioned the 2008 presidential candidates during the two years preceding the election: http://www.designerwpf.com/2009/02/22/infoviz-project-for-tim-heuer-presidential-candidate-tracker/ )

    I've been looking for some way of mapping data by county, but I can't find any good free (or cheap) vector maps that split up the country by county. Vector maps are ideal for working in Silverlight because they can be easily converted to XAML Paths that can be modified and animated.

    Anyone have any suggestions?

    (By the way, if anyone is looking, there is a pretty decent SVG map of the US state by state that is free for use: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blank_US_Map.svg )

  2. nathany
    FlowingData Editor
    Posted 2 years ago #

    from @SimonRegenbogen: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USA_Counties_with_names.svg

  3. nathany
    FlowingData Editor
    Posted 2 years ago #

    there's also this: http://www.census.gov/geo/www/cob/bdy_files.html

  4. martian
    Member
    Posted 2 years ago #

    The Pro version of UUorld (www.uuorld.com, $49) can convert most any shapefile to SVG. The standard download includes US Counties.

    Disclosure: I was one of the developers on this software.

  5. indiemaps
    Member
    Posted 2 years ago #

    Indieprojector freely converts shapefiles and KMLs to SVG, maintaining all layers and features for later display, interaction, animation, what have you. Check it out!-- http://indiemapper.com/projector.html

    Oh, and I was one of the developers of this software.

  6. kendall015
    Member
    Posted 2 years ago #

    If you choose to convert shapefiles into SVGs using ArcGIS or other software, you may want to simplify the maps first so they have fewer points. I have found this very necessary while creating a similar project (in Flex, though). You can do that for free at the following URL: http://mapshaper.com/test/demo.html

    In theory you can simplify SVGs using inkscape, but I don't know how.


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