An Introduction To Web Visualization

By: Luke Simkins

Who is this guy?

• Software Engineer at Oseberg
• Love graphics and data
• Recent move into GIS
• @lsimkins

The Plan

• What is Visualization?
• How is Visualization related to Maps?
• Basic Map Visualizations
• Web-Based Tools

What is Visualization?

Visualizations allow us to intrepret large amounts of information.

Turn this

Into this

What about Maps?

Map visualizations allow us to interpret spatially significant data

Maps are one of the most information-dense displays of information

Examples of Map Visualizations

Thematic Maps

• Display a particular theme for a geographic region
• Choropleth is a common example
• World Infant Mortality

Dot density map
(Dot distribution map)

• Mapbox Tweet Map
• Over 6 billion data points

Contour (Isopleth) Map

Proportional Symbol Maps http://maps.stamen.com/sftech/

Cartogram

• Distort map area based on data

Population Cartogram

Flow Map

50 years of space exploration

Drug Routes in Mexico

Many Others

• Heat maps
• Connection maps
• Non-contiguous cartograms
• Dasymetric

Web-Based Tools

• Platform for creating data-driven maps
• Hosts your maps & data
• Open Source

• Front-end javascript mapping library
• Open Source

ESRI ArcGIS

• Enterprise GIS
• Mainly Proprietary
• You must drink the koolaid

• Design & Host your maps
• Raster & WebGL
• Open Source
• Awesome

NYC 311 Calls

d3
Data-Driven Documents

• "JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data"
• Data binding & DOM transformation based on data
• Can use in conjuction with mapping libraries
• Deserves it's own talk

Turf

• Javascript Geospatial Analysis
• "Helps analyze, aggregate, and transform data in order to visualize and answer advanced questions."

• Cyber Attack Map
• Napoleon’s march
• World Weather Viewer
• Nearest McDonalds

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte