A couple of days ago my wife asked me to help her map some Census data. I have always been interested in maps, and after a couple of web searches, I found a couple of interesting examples of people using Google Earth to map data. In particular, I found this post on the Juice Analytics blog. This got me going - I had some spare time, a desire to learn Ruby, a lot of data, a love of data visualization, and a purpose.
I plan to use this blog to share what I've created and let others share their knowledge, feedback, and experience. Please join in the discussion and check back frequently as I hope to share what I've found.
This wouldn't be much of a start if I didn't share some of the progress I've been making. The following screen shot shows the 2000 Census population by County Subdivision data where each meter of height represents 10 people. [There is also coloring, but I've found what appears to be a bug in Google Earth such that it doesn't properly draw colors for 3D polygons.]
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Welcome to Census KML!
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1 comment:
Interesting take on KML mapping.
Quick notes: GE needs polygon coordinates in counter-clockwise order to display colors correctly. Typically, ESRI shapefiles store polygon coordinates in clockwise order.
Also, polygon rendering really taxes the end-user's graphics card. Judging from your screen-shots, you have a pretty stout card on your machine. But something to keep in mind as you distribute your content more broadly.
Looking forward to seeing more,
Brian Timoney
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