G&ES 387: Interactive Cartography

EXAMPLES

Interactive Cartography: G&ES 387
Department of Geography & Environmental Studies
Northeastern Illinois University (773)580-4050

Click on the Thumbnail to see Work Produced in Interactive Cartography.

WEB PAGE WITH CODE Students first learn how to write web pages with a text editor and arrange their UNIX directory to keep their assignments organized. They use a text editor rather than a web authoring program, in order to learn about simple coding and skillfully manage their work. Editing is done either locally and then transferred to the server, or directly on the server with pico, a text editor.

FRAMES Frames in table cells may be given a name and used as a target for URLs. In a student's project to the right, a timeline for construction of Millenium Park sends images of the park as it progresses, to the right frame. This technique is learned early on and applied in assignments throughout the term.

HYPERLINKS Hyperlinks to URLs may be embedded in an image using html code which maps circles, rectangles, or polygons to destintions. Using Frames, specifically iFrames inserted in a table cell, students created projects in which maps sent images to another location on the web page. This also required resizing of images.

ROLLOVERS Students learned to make rollovers, in which the icon changes when the mouse hovers above it, and changes again when clicked.

JAVA There are thousands of java scripts and applets available which can be used to enhance maps. In this assignment students found and implemented several java scripts each. Using java requires adapting existing code for one's own purposes, by inserting the code and usually changing some parameters.

More java scripts. Each student adopted at least three scripts. This involve finding them on line, testing them, inserting them in web pages and adjusting them for a particular purpose. Once you've done three java scripts, you see how easy it is.

ZOOMABLE IMAGES A java script and a java applet were used to present scalable images on line. This was done in two ways -- one with java script and one with an applet.

GEOSPHERE One of the Java Applets students were required to use is Geosphere, which reads latitude and longitude from an associated file and displays these as pins on a tumbling globe. Students found a table on line with latitude and longitude of all world cities, then processed the data into a form legible by this java applet.

FLASH ANIMATIONS Flash animations are a powerful way to make maps and images dynamic. Students learned how to use Rave, another tool from the Corel suite, to make movies, which can be controlled with rollover buttons.

PANORAMAS There's often no better way to show a place than with pictures, so students learned to stitch digital images into 360 degree panoramas, and display these in active frames with a free java applet, and with professional panoramic software. The professional software allows zooming, and hyperlinking from one panorama to another.

GOOGLE MAPS Google has given access to its Google Maps API, which means anyone can draw on their database and use their tools, as well as the tools others have created for Google Maps. Here, students learn to tap into the seamless scalable map, the navigation tools, and aerial photo which extends around the globe.

INTERACTIVE CARTOGRAMS Next, a java applet made available to us by a Swiss cartographer-programmer, was used to create cartograms from ArcGIS shape files. a good deal of data preparation and careful application of this java applet resulted in the interactive creation of images like the one to the right of New York State's 2000 population. Counties with more people enlarge, those with few people shrink.

INTERACTIVE SITE MAP Another impressive program was demonstrated and works wonderfuly in windows. But an exercise was not assigned because as of yet we don't have on-line publishing abilities. But here is an on-line example of blinkmap, a free java applet which creates a tidy project using raster maps.

MAP PROJECT FROM GIS FILES Finally, layer files from a Geographic Information System were used to make a series of maps with color-fill themes, and -- with the demo version of an add-on utility -- converted to interactive layers which can be turned on and off.

There is one exam.