Lab 10: Bivariate Map

A map showing Super Typhoon Haiyan superimposed over the continental United States has gone viral. It's all wrong.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115554/haiyan-isnt-large-united-states

Here's the image, supposedly (actually?) created by the Red Cross:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/12/typhoon-haiyan-map_n_4256302.html
In the images below, provided by the University of Wisconsin's Space Science and Engineering Center, Haiyan and Katrina are pictured side by side. The image on the left shows what it would've looked like had Haiyan landed near the Gulf of Mexico, while the one on the right is an actual image of Hurricane Katrina:

Last week, in the hope of providing some perspective to those outside the Philippines as to the massive scale of this disaster, Derek Medlin, an editor at CBS-affiliate WRAL.com, tweeted a photograph of what it would've looked like if the typhoon had made landfall near North Carolina:

Bi-variate Map Example from Web

"The view below highlights the current issue with Tableau dual axis mapping visualizations--dots are stores, and filled areas are customer demand. Customer demand exists in areas (postal codes) where there are no stores, but these don't show up because they do not have a corresponding joined data point.  Want to show all stores and all area demand in one view.  This is the most requested view in our company and I would love to run it from Tableau."

 http://community.tableausoftware.com/ideas/1492

Lab 9: West Virginia Dot Density Map

Final Project Thoughts

I will be mapping the lighthouses of Florida.  I chose this subject because next year for our anniversary, my husband and I are taking a trip to Florida and we enjoy touring lighthouses.  We have several books that are not current and that do not have maps.  I also see a need for this map because even though I have found several sites on-line regarding lighthouses with maps, I have yet to find one map that encompasses the entire state, with all lighthouses listed.  The audience for this map will primarily be my family, but I intend to model it after tourist-style maps. 

The scope of my map will be the coastal areas, with just the base map of Florida needed.  The data that I have found so far is from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Florida Lighthouse Association, all current this year.  I will attempt to include all lighthouses and reef and shoal lights, indicating whether the lights are still active, and most importantly, if they are open to the public.  Some grounds are open to the public, but the lights themselves cannot be toured, so I will specify that open to the public is meaning that you can actually climb the tower to the lens room.  There are 35 lighthouses in Florida at this time, with 29 remaining active and 11 offering tours. 

After uploading the basemap, I will spend a lot of time on getting the colors and fonts to match the old-time feel of the map.  I love the color scheme from the map on the attached website, but will incorporate some of my own ideas…  I will find a mimetic icon and decide how to show the data of active/decommissioned and open/closed to the public.  I’m not sure yet on the best way to do this…

I expect my main challenge will be placing all of the information on the map in a fresh, aesthetically pleasing way.  The link at the bottom is to a map from www.pensacolalighthouse.org .  I feel it is the “best looking” map that I have found, but it doesn’t include all of the information that I need.  I like the “old” feel to it, which brings to mind the era in which lighthouses played such an important part.  I would like to improve this map, with maybe this color scheme.  The other 4 maps included again do not show all of the lighthouses and are lacking in aesthetic appeal to me.  

Partial Map of Florida Lighthouses