Martin's availability for project help

Dear ESS 132 students

I will be available to help you with any problems you may be having with your projects from 9h30 - 17h00 on Tuesday 29 October and Thursday 31 October.

If there are none of you present in the computer laboratory on the ground floor of the New Science Building I will be working on the fifth floor. My office is on the right near the entrance.

Still can't find me... I have gone to get coffee or lunch or speaking to Dr Knight.

Remember I am available for help with problem not to do your project for you!  Please use this blog to find instructions for the entire process of making your cartograms and final project presentations.

Remember to follow the instruction very carefully for handing in your projects via email which you will find in the previous post on this blog.

FINAL DATE 4 NOVEMBER 2013

Cheers
Martiin.

Intructions for your final cartogram project

Hi

Here are the instructions for your final cartogram project. You and your partner will submit one project and received a joint mark so cooperate well together.

Please read the instructions carefully!!!!!
1. Don' t forget to add your and your partner's student number everywhere that is indicated.
2. You will be submitting one power point .pptx file for both of you named with your and your partner's student numbers - see document below which explains everything in detail.

FINAL DATE FOR SUBMISSION  4 November 2012

Preparing and submitting your joint cartogram project presentation

Saving your cartograms maps

Hi


Today is our last class!

You and your partner must finish making the 10 cartogram maps for your project from the ten sets of data you have chosen.

In case you should need to access these again I suggest that you save each of your cartogram maps to a shape files and copy these to your own storage device i.e. phone or memory stick.

You can use these steps that you used to incorporate the joined data into a single shape except now you are simpoly exporting the cartogram which is saved when it is produced in a special database to a shape file. Remember you will get about 6 file for each cartogram you export.

Steps for exporting a cartogram layer to a shape file. 

You must then export each to an image to use in your power point project. Follow these steps...

Saving your cartograms as an image

Once you have all ten between you and you partner you are ready to do your power point project.

Instruction for your project in the next post

Cheers
Martin

Making cartograms from your data

Hi


This week we are going to finally make the cartograms using your worldmapper_all layer which is your to your reorganized excel spreadsheet. In the tutorial it explains that we first have to save the join into a new shape file and how to do this.
After this is done you can continue making the cartograms. Please refer to the last blog post for the method used to make the cartograms.
Download
Cheers



Exporting the joined worldmapper_alllayer to a new combined shape file

Martin

Installing the Cartogram tool for ArcGIS

Hi

Some of you may be ready to make cartograms from your worldmap_all layer.

BUT before you can start with this step you must have done the following 

1. Reorganised your spreadsheets so that all your data in available in one spreadsheet
2. Removed any repeated columns from your spreadsheet
3. Changed the column heading to 8 characters without spaces, brackets etc (remember to make a note of what your new headings mean!)
4. Join your spreadsheet to your worldmapper_all layer
5. Added a column or columns classifying the countries of the world into categories  (These will depend on  the question which you asked)

If you have completed all this you can start making the cartograms.

REMEMBER TO SAVE ALL THE YOUR WORK IN A SINGLE FOLDER AND EMAIL IT TO YOUR SELF!

Adding and using the ArcGIS Cartogram tool

We are going to try to do this today but the permissions on the lab computer may prevent us from getting this far. In which case we have have the script installed on the machine by next week and I will give you another task in the class.

In order to make the cartograms we have to add a special script to ArcGIS.  This script come with full instructions and its own data follow the steps below!

1. Download the cartogram tool script readme file (below) and read it carefully before doing anything else!  I know I don't I just click and get frustrated!!!!
2. Install the script to a folder which you create on the desktop e.g. desktop/ArcScripts.
3. Don't get confused you are here to learn!
4. The script installs its own demonstration .mxd file with its own layers and the tool already added to the toolbox. This is available in the cartogram .mxd file which is in the directory where you installed the script e.g. desktop/ArcScripts. You can use this demo to practice making a cartogram by following the steps in the readme file.
5. Once you have practiced making a cartogram using the demo data in the cartogram.mxd you can try with the worldmap_all layer using the data you joined to it from your spreadsheet in your .mxd file. 

If you read the instructions carefully - you will note the following when making a cartogrm using your data!

You must add the tool to the toolbox - follow the steps in the readme file.

Make sure there are no negative values in the value field you are using - this will be one of the columns you added with the join. You can do this by adding the definition query - all explained in the readme.

DON'T PANIC!

Check the box "Copy the Original Polygon Features table to the Output Cartogram Features table" or your cartogram will loose much of its attribute data such as country name which is no good.

Downloads

Cartogram tool readme file

Cartogram tool script

Remember not to panic and have fun!

Martin

Joining the world map GIS layer to spreadsheet data

Hi Students

Today we are going continue learning how to use the GIS program ArcGIS which you started to use last week. If you are lost with ArcGIS take a look at last weeks tutorial.

You should by now have your spreadsheets ready in the way I have explained.

1. First row contains the column headings for the data which consists of less than 25 chraracters [numbers, letters (upper and lower case) - or _  and nothing else.]
2. Second row downwards in the spreadsheetcontains just your data.
3. At least one category colunm has been added by you to to your spreadsheet.

Last week you leant how to open ArcGIS 10, open the world mapper shape file and save your work as a .mxd file. Some of you may also have changed the maps symbology!

Today we are going to join youir data in the spreadsheet to that of the world mapper shape file's attribute table thus bringing your data into the GIS so that it can be viewed spatially.

Download the tutorial below which explains joining table and adding symbology (for those that haven't tried this yet).

Joining  tables and  adding symbology

Good luck and have fun
Martin

Getting to know ArcGIS 10 - GIS software

Hi there

After you are finished organising your table of data you must start to get get to know the basics of ArcGIS 10 by doing the tutorial below.

Introduction to ArcGIS 10

You will need a GIS map layer to use. We are going to use GIS information of a world map in the form of a shape file.  The shape file, an ESRI format for saving GIS information, has become a standard format for GIS vector information. When you unzip the file below you will notice that it is not one file. A "shape file" always consists of three or more files.

Wold mapper shape file

I will explain all this in class.

Cheers
Martin

Add categories to your data

Hi there

I hope you had a good break last week!

This week you are going to complete your spreadsheet getting ready for starting the GIS part of of your project by adding categories to you data.

I will go through an example in class which I will add to this post on the blog. Those of you that finish can start getting to know the GIS software we will be using (Arc GIS 10) by following the tutorial below.

Introduction to ArcGIS 10

If you do get this far you will need a GIS map layer to use. We are going to use GIS information of a world map in the form of a shape file.  The shape file, an ESRI format for saving GIS information, has become a standard format for GIS vector information. When you unzip the file below you will notice that it is not one file. A "shape file" always consists of three or more files.

Wold mapper shape file

Don't worry if you don't get to the GIS introduction this week we'll contiue next week when I will explaonit all in full!


Cheers
Martin

Sourcing and sorting your data

Dear ESS 132 students

Today you will continue to source, sort and categorize your data for your projects.

Sourcing and downloading your data

1. You can download data for your project subject area from the following link.

BCB downloads server - World Mapper datar

OR

the World mapper website

2. Download and save ten data sets related to your sector category (all the data is for all the regions of the world).
3. Which data sets you choose is up to you but they be relate to the sector category you chose.

Sorting your data  

1. Cut and paste the columns you need into a single unified spreadsheet. 

2. Keep the original ten data sets for reference.

3. Remove duplicate columns

4. Rename the column headings

5. Keep the data for all regions (rows) at this stage

I will demonstrate what you should do in clas today

Categorizing your data

Depending on the questions you have asked you are going to add categories to your data. I will explain this in class and those of you that are finished sorting their data can start categorizing it. 

Cheers

Martin

Check your project subject area!

Dear ESS 132 student

Please download the spreadsheet below and check that you and your partner are correctly listed for the project you chose i.e. a region and a sector category combination.

Your firstname, Surname and student numbers should appear at the correct intersection of  region (the rows) and sector categories (the columns).

Regions: Africa, Europe, Americas, Pacific (Oceania), Asia
Sector categories: Health, Environment, Industry, Politics, Law, Economy, Population

If you find an error please speak to me in class today

Download the class project subject area spreadsheet 

Cheers
Martin

Blog for ESS 132 up and running!

Dear ESS 132 Students

You will be able to find every thing you need for the course on this blog!

As the course continues I will place notices and instructions for thursday afternoon sessions on this blog

Good luck with your projects!

Cheers
Martin