Creating Cartograms - Some Options

One of the most difficult things to do properly with GIS is to create cartograms. They can be very powerful visually (e.g. Worldmapper, see below) but producing accurate representations is not simple. I've been experimenting with this over the years, and have now come to some conclusions...


You could use something like MAPresso to create cartograms but it's not necessarily the easiest application to get into. If you're an ArcGIS user you could try the CartogramCreator extension.

However, I've recently experimented with ScapeToad and have found it to be the best tool. It's stand-alone software for producing cartograms (despite the funny name) and it works really well and there are many useful options for creating cartograms. It's very easy to use as well.

European Geodata - NUTS, etc.

Need to find digital boundaries for the European Union? Tried googling but no success? They are of course available via UKBorders in the UK but if you can't get them this way then you can find them via search but it's not that easy.

The first thing you need to do is go to the Eurostat Geodata pages. Then from the menu on the left you can select 'Reference' or 'Archive' to get to the download section. Once you're there you just need to click on the kind of data you want (e.g. 'Administrative units/statistical units') and you are taken to the download page where there are lots of links...

And that's it.

Some interesting datasets, including:

• Corine Land Cover
• Urban Morphological Zones
• Degree of urbanisation
• NUTS boundaries (down to NUTS3)
• Elevation
• Settlement names

Centre for Cities - Private Sector Growth

A quick post today about some recent work published by the Centre for Cities. The report, called 'Private sector cities: A new geography of opportunity' looks at the question of private sector growth in England and the issue of whether any spatial 'rebalancing' is needed in relation to fostering private sector growth.

It was written by the Centre for Cities' Chris Webber and Paul Swinney and has had quite lot of media attention (e.g. this Financial Times article) since its publication. Worth a look - and not just because of the fancy graphics!

Sheffield Demolition

Quiet on the blogging front recently, but yesterday I had the chance to see a Sheffield Building toppled. The old Osborne Mushets on Penistone road (in street view below), was demolished to make way for new development. More changes to Sheffield's old industrial landscape.


View Larger Map

I took some photos and a video of the event...

Functional Typology Website

When I worked at the University of Manchester I was involved in some work which developed a functional typology of deprived neighbourhoods. I've mentioned this before in the blog. Well, now there is a website on it, produced by the Centre for Urban Policy Studies at the University of Manchester.

It tells you all about the typology, has a google map version with LSOA boundaries, and describes the methodology and results. It also provides details of publications relating to the typology. A screenshot is shown below. Go to the Functional Typology of Deprived Neighbourhoods website to see more...

A Lightbox and a 3D Map

A short post today, following the theme of some other recent posts. I've been experimenting with creating different kinds of 3D surfaces with Ordnance Survey data. I've also been experimenting with ways of displaying these online.

So, what's a 'lightbox' - well, it's a way of making an image pop-out on screen with the background darkened. Click the image below to see this in action. The 3D map in the lightbox is just a surface model I created using an OS 1:50,000 colour raster tile for the Inverness/Moray Firth area in the north of Scotland.

Further details of how to integrate lightboxes into blogger (for nerds) can be found here.

Video Tutorials for GIS

I've not been saying much recently about screencasting, or video tutorials, but I have been working in this area quite a lot over the past year - mainly in conjunction with SalfordGIS. I've just come back from the Planning Research UK Conference in Chelmsford where I was speaking about my work in this area. So, I thought it was about time for another GIS screencast post.

The video below is one of a series I've produced in collaboration with SalfordGIS. This one is a basic ArcMap demo but we also have lots of MapInfo videos too. For both GIS applications skills from basic to advanced are covered. The videos are all around 3 to 5 minutes long each, with one task demonstrated per video. The idea is not to replace traditional GIS training but to provide quick refreshers of key skills.