static maps
My largest printed project is the trail and recreation map of Mount Diablo, Los Vaqueros & Surrounding Parks, Featuring the Diablo Trail (created for Save Mount Diablo).
Press links:
An article on the map project at www.SaveMountDiablo.org
Mapping the Mountain from the Contra Costa Times.
Zoomable previews (not final version):
Mount Diablo, etc.
Los Vaqueros, etc.
acknowledgements
Trails and points of interest were positioned according to aerial
photographs (2005, USDA, 1 meter resolution), and most were also
field-verified by GPS. Elevation values and shading were created from
USGS data. Basemap data obtained from the California Spatial
Information Library (CASIL). Conserved land boundaries were synthesized
from data from CASIL, East Bay Regional Parks District, Save Mount
Diablo, and collaborative work with GreenInfo Network and Bay Nature
magazine.
Huge thanks are due to our volunteer map committee which met monthly during the two years it took to create this map. The committee included John Kelly, Don de Fremery, Ken Dyleski, Scott Hein, Michael McCormack, Kate McKillop, and Dave Husted and was staffed by Seth Adams, SMD’s Director of Land Programs. Chris Ritter and Aaron Steinstra of The Focal Point LLC gave valuable pro bono feedback on graphic presentation. Louis Jaffe, Beth Stone and Roger Epperson provided significant help, and Roslyn Bullas of Wilderness Press provided advice on pricing and distribution. SMD volunteer Christine Odom wrote two successful grant applications. Special thanks to Doug Tracey of REI-Concord for his help.
Drafts of the map were sent to various agencies for their suggestions and corrections, including Contra Costa Water District, East Bay Regional Park District, Mt. Diablo State Park, the Mt. Diablo Interpretive Association, the City of Walnut Creek Open Space system, and the Walnut Creek Open Space Foundation.
This map was a volunteer effort done on nights, weekends, and days off; thanks to my "real job" employer for letting me have a flexible contract position, and for hiring me proper once I finished this map and committed to full time work. Thanks also to my nights and weekends "offices": Fertile Grounds (Berkeley), Village Grounds, Common Grounds, Sufficient Grounds, Legal Grounds (by the court house in Martinez, when I missed the Amtrak train), Ultimate Grounds (near the old place on Park Blvd, Oakland), Native Grounds, Strada's outdoor grounds (Berkeley), Mishka's grounds, Bushrod playing grounds, Chamonix Cafe (Davis), Guerilla Cafe, Jumpin' Java, Coffee With A Beat (Perkins St, Oakland), A'Cuppa Tea (College & Alcatraz, Berkeley), Hudson Bay Cafe (Oakland), Nomad Cafe (Oakland), Nomad MuVo, No-Mad Anger Management, Creed's Thoughts, Bob Loblaw's Law Blog,...
Devil Mountain Double
A 12x18" paper map made in 2005 while studying cartography at UC
Berkeley, inspired by a ride/race I had just cycled (204 mile, ~19,000
feet of climbing):
Click to enlarge:
Mount Diablo Viewshed Analysis
Click to enlarge:
2004 US General Election
Back when Brokaw and Rather ruled the airwaves, every four years they would track the presidential election with a big, binary map of the United States: each state a solid red if the Republican candidate won it, a solid blue if the Democratic one did. This is true to our "winner takes all" procedure of allocating the states' electoral votes, but it doesn't illustrate the size or the distribution of the win. And the importance of each state toward overall victory is dependent upon the state's population, not its land area. (Although many may argue that earth and ag should count as much as the cities they support.)
I created the maps below to illustrate some ways to show more of the nuances in the elections; a glance through them should demonstrate the different levels of detail we can show with adequate data and software. Tersely, then:
| Distinguishes landslides from horseraces? | Shows granularity (distribution w/in state)? | Visual size indicates voter population? | ||
| 1 | Old School | No | No | No |
| 2 | Non-boolean | Yes | No | No |
| 3 | Purple waves of grain | Yes | Yes | No |
| 4 | Shades of gray | Yes | Yes | No |
| 5 | Cartogram (recognizeable, resized shapes) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 6 | Cartogram (contiguous, stretched shapes) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 7 | Shades of purple + "3D" extrusion (# of votes proportional to volume of county) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 8 | Shades of gray + "3D" extrusion (# of votes proportional to height of county) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 9 | As above, rotated so SF not hidden by LA | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 10 | As above, stretched onto curved earth | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Click to enlarge:
