Where the Donors At?

Though I haven't posted anything for a while, it doesn't mean I've been completely absent on the map-front. Au contraire, I've given myself a few projects to do at work showing where the donors, donations, and lecture attendees come from, and today I'll share a map of donors for [place of work omitted].

I chose to show this map by zip code for two reasons. First, I have zip codes for all the donors. Second, there are zip code map shapefiles easily obtainable online. Future variants of this map will be more neighborhood specific, though I'll probably just translate all the addresses into GPS positions and map those, rather than find a way of using street maps or something crazy like that.

You would think, for those of you familiar with Chattanooga, that you should be able to identify wealthier areas of town based on the number of donors for that zip code. This map is sort of surprising in that regard, as the heaviest donor base is actually in Marion County, which would not have been my first guess.

More of the Same

I have version 2 of the Hamilton County, Tennessee, watershed map ready to go today. Prepared again using QuantumGIS, with Elevation data downloaded from the National Map and transformed into a lovely elevation/terrain model.

I had to download the data because, even though there is a WMS service for USGS data that lets you pull it directly into Quantum or your GIS software of choice, it limits the size of the map you can "print." What that meant for me was that when I tried to create an image of the map, it was considered too large, and the images served up by the WMS (Web Map Service.. I have to remind myself of what these acronyms stand for so that someday I'll actually remember them) didn't show up in my map image.

I like this map okay but I like it less when I go back and look at the original HCWQ map that motivated this project in the first place. Oh well, it's a learning project... and I can't do it exactly the same way as Adam did because that would be unoriginal!

A Quantum Leap

I just had QuantumGIS installed on my work computer, which is exciting for multiple reasons. First off, I can give myself projects to work on when there's a lull. Second, I'm all for supporting open-source software use when possible. Third, it explicitly gives the finger to ESRI, who charges an arm and a leg for ArcGIS licenses as well as fees for admission to their user conference (even for non-profits).

The first time I downloaded Quantum was before I had ever used Arc, and I was naturally bewildered about how to do anything with it. I had downloaded some gigantic files and an outdated tutorial that required the use of GRASS alongside Quantum and was doing my best to come to some sort of understanding, but really to no avail. After working with Arc and coming back to Quantum, I must say I'm a fan of the interface now. It seems far less cluttered but still presumably with all the functionality (however that works). I haven't done any analysis with it yet, just trying to get my feet wet by making some maps.

Here's my first offering exclusively using Quantum: a labeled map of the watersheds (HUC 12 level) in Hamilton County, Tennessee. There's all kinds of data I'd like to put on the map, so it's hard to limit it for clarity's sake, but I'm still looking at making some future changes, like adding a shaded relief basemap from USGS and coloring the individual watersheds different colors instead of having chunky borders around each one.