UC Berkeley Workshop: Introduction and Map Design

Introduction to Map Design

Andy Eschbacher, @MrEPhysics, eschbacher@cartodb.com

October 19, 2015

Workshop here: http://bit.ly/cdb-berkeley-mapdesign

Web Maps

Before we dive into CartoDB, let's talk a little bit about web maps
When we talk about web maps, we are referring to a few different components:
- the map (aka, basemap)
- the data overlay
- and the interface that the map sits in

Is this a web map?

In some ways yes, because the maps are on the web, but when we are talking about web maps, we're usually talking about a map like this

Basemap

A map that provides geographic context to help support a wide variety of overlays- typically raster tiles.

Map tiles

The dimensions are 256x256 pixels and organized based on coordinates (x,y) and zoom levels (z).

Zoom levels

Defines the scale of the current map view. Ranges from 0 (entire world) to 21 (individual building level).

Let's look at a tile

http://www.openstreetmap.org

Tile URL

Free or custom?

Overlay

Themes of information overlaid on a basemap that help tell a story - typically vector.

How do we interact with the overlay?

Javascript/HTML/CSS for rendering on the web

With these languages you can publish your map with the basetiles loaded and your data layers appropriately geocoded; with JavaScript you can also add to the interactivity of your map, revealing metadata in the tooltips

Get started building web maps using

Using CartoDB you can:

easily overlay data onto a map
analyze the data to reveal spatial patterns
tell stories by creating beautiful visualizations
and then share them with the world!

CartoDB combines:

the power of PostGIS and SQL
CartoCSS for map styling
JavaScript for overlay and interactivity
Mapnik for tile rendering

These technologies are all packaged into one easy-to-use online interface.

Examples

Source: The Data Visualization Catalogue.

Source: Time Travel Between Counties, CartoDB.js

DATA SEARCH TOOLS

Source: GDELT Geographic News Search Tool

Journalists have used the GDELT data to track wildlife crime, and the spread of the Islamic State in the Middle East among other things.

You can fork the GDELT hourly synced data set from the CartoDB Data Library and add it as a layer on your map or use the Geographic Search Tool linked above to search for tags of interest.

CHART GRAPHICS

Source: Geogia County Car Crash Counts, C3.js

Planning a web map

What is the purpose of the map?
Where can I get the data?
Will the map be queried for additional information?
Will the map be viewed on multiple devices?

Data Import + Sync Tables

Geospatial data is info that ids a geolocation and its characteristic features/frontiers, typically represented by points, lines, polygons, and/or complex geographic features.

Issues:

Comes in multiple formats (supported formats for CartoDB)
Sources uncertain
Contains errors
etc.

Geocoding + SQL/PostGIS The most basic SQL statement is:

SELECT * FROM table_name

SELECT is what you're requesting (required)
FROM is where the data is located (optional)
WHERE is the filter on the data you're requesting (optional)
GROUP BY and ORDER BY are optional additions, you can read more about aggregate/other functions below.

There are three special columns in CartoDB:

the_geom
the_geom_webmercator
cartodb_id

The first of these is in the units of standard latitude/longitude, while the second is a projection based on the original Mercator projection but optimized for the web. cartodb_id is a unique number identifying row numbers and is very fast for executing queries.

If you want to run SQL commands and see your map update, make sure to SELECT the the_geom_webmercator because this is the column that's used for mapping--the other is more of a convenience column since most datasets use lat/long. If you want to keep interactivity (infowindows, etc.), you need to include cartodb_id in the query results.

Sync Tables

The Editor is setup to process realtime data updates via sync tables.

You can import data that lives online via a URL, and set it to pull and update your map at regular intervals.

Check the file types supported in sync tables; keep in mind that it also works with Dropbox + Google Drive.

Notes:

to auto-geocode a sync table, verify that it contains the following:
- country column, a latitude column and a separate longitude column
- a column of IP addresses
- postal codes
to edit sync tables you need to be disconnected from the data source, so during syncing, you can use SQL to manipulate the dataset on the fly
you can create sync tables in both the Editor and via the Import API

Customizing UI + CartoCSS

You have myriad customization options in the in-browser editor:

sql - run sql and postgis functions across your data
wizard - adjust the type, colors and fills in your map
infowindow - create hovers, tooltips with information from your datatables
css - customize the css and style of your map outside the wizard
legends - create keys for your map
filters - filter the data without sql

Likewise, many types of visualizations:

Simple -- most basic visualization
Cluster -- counts number of points within a certain binned region
Choropleth -- makes a histogram of your data and gives bins different colors depending on the color ramp chosen
Category -- color data based on unique category (works best for a handful of unique types)
Bubble -- size markers based on column values
Intensity -- colors by density
Density -- data aggregated by number of points within a hexagon
Torque -- temporal visualization of data
Heat -- more fluid map of concentration; emphasis on far over near-view

Styles

Marker Fill: change the size, color, and opacity of all markers
Marker Stroke: change the width, color, and opacity of every marker's border
Composite Operation: change the color of markers when they overlap
Label Text: Text appearing by a marker (can be from columns)

Infowindows/hovers

Select which column data appear in infowindow by toggling column on
Customize further by selecting HTML-view

Basemaps

Check out the base CartoDB Basemaps from Stamen.

Make a map showing near real-time fire readings from MODIS

http://cdb.io/1LjqaoD

Find data in the CartoDB Data Library

Search for the following datasets in the CartoDB Data Library and add them to your account:
- ne_50m_land
- ne_50m_ocean
Add graticule lines from Natural Earth to CartoDB
- New Dataset
- Copy/paste the URL below and hit Submit
  - http://www.naturalearthdata.com/http//www.naturalearthdata.com/download/50m/physical/ne_50m_graticules_15.zip

Add near-real time MODIS active fire data

Go to: https://earthdata.nasa.gov/earth-observation-data/near-real-time/firms/active-fire-data
Scroll down to the link for world readings in shapefile format
Right-click, and copy link address
- https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/active_fire/shapes/zips/Global_24h.zip
- choose the option to sync every hour

Add the layers to a map

New Map
- Find the three layers from above, highlight, and click Create Map
Order Layers
- Put the layers in the following order from top to bottom:
  - global_24hr
  - ne_50m_land
  - ne_50m_graticule_15
  - ne_50m_ocean

Project Layers

Our final map uses the Robinson Projection. One of the really powerful capabilites of CartoDB is the ability to project layers on the fly and publish that to your web map. To use the Robinson Projection, we need to add it to your list of availble projections (there is a table in your account called Spatial Ref Sys).
- To add the Robinson Projection, copy and paste the information here into the SQL tray:

  INSERT into spatial_ref_sys (srid, auth_name, auth_srid, proj4text, srtext) values ( 54030, 'ESRI', 54030, '+proj=robin +lon_0=0 +x_0=0 +y_0=0 +datum=WGS84 +units=m +no_defs ', 'PROJCS["World_Robinson",GEOGCS["GCS_WGS_1984",DATUM["WGS_1984",SPHEROID["WGS_1984",6378137,298.257223563]],PRIMEM["Greenwich",0],UNIT["Degree",0.017453292519943295]],PROJECTION["Robinson"],PARAMETER["False_Easting",0],PARAMETER["False_Northing",0],PARAMETER["Central_Meridian",0],UNIT["Meter",1],AUTHORITY["EPSG","54030"]]');

Use ST_Transform to project each layer
- We'll project each layer in the World Robinson projection
- To do this we'll use ST_Transform along with the SRID for the projection
- Expand the view for ne_50m_land, click on SQL for the SQL tray and add the following:
```
SELECT 
  ST_Transform(the_geom, 54030) 
AS 		
  the_geom_webmercator
FROM 
  ne_50m_land
```
- Do the same for ne_50m_ocean and ne_50m_graticule_15

For the global_24hr active fire readings from MODIS, we'll project, and query the data for attributes that we'll use to symbolize the overlay.
On our final map
- we only want to display fires that have a confidence value of greater than or equal to 50
- we'll symbolize the points based on their brightness
- have the brightest points drawing on top
- and enable interactivity on the fire point To do this, add the following to the SQL tray for global_24hr:

SELECT 
  ST_Transform(the_geom, 54030) 
AS 		
  the_geom_webmercator,
  cartodb_id,
  confidence,
  brightness
FROM 
  global_24h
WHERE
  confidence>=50
ORDER BY 
  brightness ASC

Map Styling

Change the basemap

Since we are styling our own simple basemap, let's remove the default basemap from Positron to a solid background
- Click on Change Basemap in the bottom left hand corner
- Click on the color chip, and choose white

Style each layer

We want our theme (active fire readings) to be highest in the visual hierarchy in our final map. In order to achieve this, we will style our land, graticule, and ocean layers using minimal colors:

ne_50m_ocean:

#ne_50m_ocean {
  polygon-fill: #9fc4dd;
  polygon-opacity: 0.7;
}

ne_50m_graticules_15:

#ne_50m_graticules_15{
  line-color: #FFFFFF;
  line-width: 0.5;
  line-opacity: 0.7; 
}

ne_50m_land:

#ne_50m_land{
  polygon-fill: #ede1d8;
  polygon-opacity: 1;
}

Now let's take a look at what options are available to symbolize the fire data:
- Click on the Wizard
- Look through the different options
  - symbolize based on choropleth points
  - choose 5 buckets and classification scheme
- Try out some compositing operations
If you like, you can also change the colors of the fire points on your map
- An easy way to test out colors is using CartoCSS variables
- Click on the CSS tab and try assigning each class a color based on a variable:
```
@1:#FFF700;
@2:#FF7C3B;
@3:#E03E36;
@4:#B80D57;
@5:#700961;
```

Here is the styling I used:

/** choropleth visualization */

  @1:#FFF700;
  @2:#FF7C3B;
  @3:#E03E36;
  @4:#B80D57;
  @5:#700961;

#global_24h{
  marker-file: url(http://com.cartodb.users-assets.production.s3.amazonaws.com/maki-icons/square-18.svg);
  marker-fill-opacity: 0.8;
  marker-line-color: #FFF;
  marker-line-width: 1;
  marker-line-opacity: 1;
  marker-width: 10;
  marker-fill: @1;
  marker-allow-overlap: true;
}
#global_24h [ brightness <= 502.71] {
   marker-fill: @5;
}
#global_24h [ brightness <= 402.2] {
   marker-fill: @4;
}
#global_24h [ brightness <= 375.7] {
   marker-fill: @3;
}
#global_24h [ brightness <= 352.7] {
   marker-fill: @2;
}
#global_24h [ brightness <= 329.8] {
   marker-fill: @1;
}

Add Popups

Click on the infowindow option on the global_24hr layer
Choose the style and information you want to show in your popup
- for Brightness add unit of measurement (Kelvin)
- for more information see: https://earthdata.nasa.gov/files/README_SHP.pdf

Add a title, annotations, etc.

Click the option to Add Element
And choose Add title item
Change the placement, font, color, etc.

Select map elements

Click on options and choose which map elements you want from the list

Publish the final map

Other notes:

You can use this simple basemap again for different themes of information and style it accordingly

andy-esch/real-time.md