FlowingData Forums » Data Visualization

Map visualization tools?

Started 3 years ago by enotal / 4 posts

  1. enotal
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    I'm wondering what free/cheap software people (especially Nathan) use for map-based visualizations. There's tons of interesting geographic data out there organized by state, ZIP code, lat/long, etc., and I have lots of ideas for things to do with it, but I don't have have any experience with GIS, shapefiles, etc. and none of the info I can dig up is very beginner-friendly. Most sites seem to skip the how-to's and go straight into the alphabet soup...

    The Google Charts API has a basic geochart format, and UUorld is another option, but what else do people use? Also, are there any good "hello, world!"-level tutorials for charting geographic data? Any general pointers welcome also - I have lots of data and ideas, I just need to find the right outlet for them!

  2. nathany
    FlowingData Editor
    Posted 3 years ago #

    The big one is ArcGIS, but of course it's pretty pricey (over a $1,000 I think). Some people like GRASS, which is open source GIS, but to be honest, I've never gotten it to work on my computer. The documentation is all that great.

    For all the mapping projects on FD, I've used Modest Maps, an open source mapping library in actionscript (http://modestmaps.com). Here's a starter tutorial:

    http://modestmaps.com/tutorial-actransit/

    It's maintained by some of the guys at Stamen among others, and we all know they do excellent work :)

    I've also done some mapping in R. This is a pretty good tutorial for maps in R:

    http://geography.uoregon.edu/GeogR/topics/maps.htm

  3. Jeanne
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    Learned about Geocommons.com at Transparency Camp this past weekend. Just starting to check it out; looks easy.

  4. nathany
    FlowingData Editor
    Posted 3 years ago #

    Oh right, I forgot about that one. Thanks, Jeanne. GeoCommons has their "Maker!" that lets you make maps from data in their database... or upload your own too, I think..

    http://maker.geocommons.com/


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