I've written quite a bit about flow mapping on these blog pages. It's only been a sideline of mine in terms of research but has consumed a lot of my time over the past year or so (well, more like three or four). So, one final image, embedded in Google Maps. This one shows gross flows of migrants between Glasgow wards from 2000 to 2001 (gross flows = two-way; that is, the total flow in both directions between two wards). Click on individual lines for more information. If you want to see the map full size in Google Maps, click the link below this smaller version and it will open.
View Larger Map
Friday, 23 January 2009
Monday, 19 January 2009
Still working on things
January has been pretty quiet on the blogging front, but that's because I've been working on papers. One of these is in revision and the other is a new piece of work based on my PhD writings (but it's taken on new life too).
Anyway, more on the former. I'm attempting to revise a paper on flow mapping and to make things more interactive and more effective so I decided that I would build a small site in google sites and then put links to content there. So, if you're at all interested in flow mapping, kml, google sites, GIS, spatial interaction or anything closely related to any of these it may be of interest. If not, it does look quite nice.
There's an introductory page, some information about the data, a few colour maps, direct links to kml files overlaid onto google maps and some links to the KML files on my web space. There's also a few words about me and about the project that all this came from. As you can see, I've also added a slightly psychedelic banner. Link to site here.
In future, I plan to blog a lot more on non-flow-mapping-related issues. It's just that for the past year or so this has been a big part of my work. That's all for now...
Anyway, more on the former. I'm attempting to revise a paper on flow mapping and to make things more interactive and more effective so I decided that I would build a small site in google sites and then put links to content there. So, if you're at all interested in flow mapping, kml, google sites, GIS, spatial interaction or anything closely related to any of these it may be of interest. If not, it does look quite nice.
There's an introductory page, some information about the data, a few colour maps, direct links to kml files overlaid onto google maps and some links to the KML files on my web space. There's also a few words about me and about the project that all this came from. As you can see, I've also added a slightly psychedelic banner. Link to site here.
In future, I plan to blog a lot more on non-flow-mapping-related issues. It's just that for the past year or so this has been a big part of my work. That's all for now...
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
Google Earth API - Embed in Web Browser
With the Google Earth API, you can embed and view actual Google Earth imagery in a web browser (you'll need the plug-in). I've been doing some other work relating to dynamic mapping so was looking for ways to implement Google Earth's time lapse functionality in a web browser rather than running it via a kml/kmz file which loads into Google Earth. That's how I came across this. I put the page here rather than on the blog because I wanted it to be separate:
http://ajrae.staff.shef.ac.uk/ge1.html - if your browser says 'load failed' or something similar, just click 'Ok' and where the Google Earth image should be you can install the plug-in from there.
Here's some images:
In the image above, you can see the search box. If I enter, 'Glasgow', for example, it will automatically zoom to here:
If you have a place that occurs in more than one location, then you may have to insert a comma and then enter the city or country it is in. For example, in the image below I've searched for Hillsborough, Sheffield and it's taken me right there...
http://ajrae.staff.shef.ac.uk/ge1.html - if your browser says 'load failed' or something similar, just click 'Ok' and where the Google Earth image should be you can install the plug-in from there.
Here's some images:
In the image above, you can see the search box. If I enter, 'Glasgow', for example, it will automatically zoom to here:
If you have a place that occurs in more than one location, then you may have to insert a comma and then enter the city or country it is in. For example, in the image below I've searched for Hillsborough, Sheffield and it's taken me right there...
Saturday, 3 January 2009
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Spatial context (plus slideshare)
A quick post today since I'm supposed to be on 'holiday' and 'off' work. I've recently got into slideshare, for putting your PowerPoint presentations online. Very useful for conferences and even teaching too. I won't say much more than this, other than that the slides below relate to my relatively recent work on spatial context, deprivation, and area effects. Maybe I'll be back before New Year but maybe not...
Thanks to Alex Hardman for getting me into this! Note that you can view the slides full screen by clicking the screen icon in the bottom right of the slideshare.
Thanks to Alex Hardman for getting me into this! Note that you can view the slides full screen by clicking the screen icon in the bottom right of the slideshare.
Friday, 19 December 2008
Simple is often better
When working with GIS boundaries, I'm often only really interested in them from a general point of view so that I can create simple choropleth maps. Also, if I'm trying to publish them over the web, there's no need to provide very accurate boundaries. Therefore, it's always useful to have different ways of simplifying boundaries. I have used various tools for this, including ET GeoWizards free tools and some of the in-built functionality of ArcGIS 9.x. However, the most convenient and flexible tool I've come across so far is MapShaper. They have an alpha testing version of their Flash-based interface here and it's really easy to use. There is a 16MB file size limit, but I've still found it to be very effective. It doesn't require much (if any) expert knowledge of GIS or of file formats, and you can simplify or smooth using a number of different methods (see images below). All in all, a very useful tool!
Thursday, 4 December 2008
Urban Policy - a Time for CHANGE?
At the risk of becoming a prolific blogger, I want to add some new thoughts on the extent to which the arrival of Barack Obama as President of the United States will have an impact on my main field of study - urban policy. This is interesting to me for a number of reasons:
1. Obama's recent background is in Chicago; a city where housing and urban policy are high on the agenda and where it has been very controversial;
2. Policy-transfer from the US to the UK is increasingly common, but not unproblematic, so any new developments there will surely impact here;
3. He promised to create a White House Office of Urban Policy;
4. He talks of 'targeting' federal dollars to urban areas and effective spending on 'high-impact' programs, but isn't this ignoring the real causes which are not in the areas that need targeting?
5. It raises the prospect of more people taking note of the work we do (e.g.)!
For the time being, however, it's just a case of wait and see and keep working on things. Right now, I'm writing a new paper which explores the extent to which spatial targeting of deprived areas for things like employment is actually a fundamentally flawed approach when there is no guarantee that jobs created in, or nearby, the poorest neighbourhoods will be of benefit to residents there.
1. Obama's recent background is in Chicago; a city where housing and urban policy are high on the agenda and where it has been very controversial;
2. Policy-transfer from the US to the UK is increasingly common, but not unproblematic, so any new developments there will surely impact here;
3. He promised to create a White House Office of Urban Policy;
4. He talks of 'targeting' federal dollars to urban areas and effective spending on 'high-impact' programs, but isn't this ignoring the real causes which are not in the areas that need targeting?
5. It raises the prospect of more people taking note of the work we do (e.g.)!
For the time being, however, it's just a case of wait and see and keep working on things. Right now, I'm writing a new paper which explores the extent to which spatial targeting of deprived areas for things like employment is actually a fundamentally flawed approach when there is no guarantee that jobs created in, or nearby, the poorest neighbourhoods will be of benefit to residents there.
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