THE FINAL PROJECT!!!!

Here it is..the culmination of more than three weeks of dedicated hard work. I am very pleased at how it turned out! There are many different features on the map including an interactive time line, stop, play and replay buttons, and buttons to show or hide explanatory text.

For a full screen version of the map check out this link: FULL SCREEN MAP

Lab 10 The Zoom Camera

I was jumping for joy when Jill showed us this camera application in Flash because it was exactly what I was looking for to do my final Project! So I decided to start my final project using this tool and it made the whole project so much easier. Before I was trying to use the transformation tools in flash but they were very finicky. So here is a sneak peak at my final project. Granted I still have loads to do!

Tufte Articles

The first paper Data Density and Small Multiples explains how well the human eye can make distinctions on graphics. The human eye can detect hundreds of different points in 1 square inch. He goes on to talk about the deficiency of highly dense graphical datasets in current publications. Graphics that have a higher density of information on a graphic are more efficient at conveying important and complex information. The information does however, need to be well organized and though out for the graphical representation to be meaningful and easily understood. There were many examples in the paper of current efficient ways to display data. In my opinion although his theory does have validity in the fact that more information is probably more efficient to display in 1 graphic rather than many. It is very difficult to display a lot of information with such a high density without the information being confused or incomprehensible. I think many people look at large data sets and find it overwhelming, and do not bother to understand the data.

This point is well addressed in the next section of the reading in the Aesthetics paper by Tufte. His comment on “Graphical elegance is often found in simplicity of design and complexity of data”. This paper talks about different types of data and how they should be expressed. Tufte claims that there are 3 major ways of displaying data; Text, tables, and graphics. Some data is appropriately displayed using 1 or all of these methods. The integration of text and graphics is an important method of portraying data. In his paper he concocted a list of rules that successful data graphics follow to make the image clear and easy to understand.

Lab 9

This lab took a while to get the hang of, but I finally got the loading bar to work and the stub screen. I tried to make a small splash screen for the loading bar but had problems when I wanted to implement a "Play" button. So I skipped the play button and finished the project.

Lab 8

For this lab I used the Park map for Glacier Bay which was the object of our recent reading assignment. After many hours of headaches in wondering why the code was not working for me I realized I missed one little detail and was able to achieve victory of my lab assignment!

Favorite Static Map

Of all of the maps that I looked at this was my favorite. I liked it because it was well organized, and very clear to the reader. Many of the maps on that page were very abstract and not very useful in a cartography sense. I love the color scheme of this map as well; the red and blue together make a huge contrast and the telecommunication routes really pop out at you. The map also has a very interesting pattern and is interesting to look at. You do not see many maps with the U.S as the center of the map, so that is also interesting.

Lab7

For this lab I added a splash screen, some links and some pop-up text to my German invasion Map. I added some sound effects to the splash screen that help set the mood of the project.

Lab 6 Shape Tween

I added a timeline and a moving front line to the lab from last week. The shape tween was very tricky. I kept getting my lines criss crossing and realized that with the pen tool you can't have the line intersect. Once I figured that out it was smooth sailing.

Lab 6

Lab 5

In this lab we worked on motion tweens expressing the German invasion into Russia in WWII.

Lab 5

Here is a good example of an animated map using a motion and shape tween.

Animated map example.

Lab 4

Lab 4

This week's lab is a political map showing the states that have voted democratic in the last eight elections. The map is interactive and you can click and choose which elections you want to show.

Map With an Interactive Timeline

I love this map of the Digital History of the U.S. The timeline is interactive and each point on the map gives you more in depth information about the event that occurred. I like scrolling through the decades and watching all the little icons pop up and fluctuate in size. It gives a sense of movement and change. Another subtle and interesting feature is the scroll bar for the time line. It is actually also an indication of the average human lifespan. So as you progress through the decades, the scroll bar increases in size to indicate the length of a generation during that time period.

Lab 3

A link to my Lab 3 assignment. I made some alterations to my timeline. I thought this would look better than what i had before and would be easier to interact with.

Assignment 2

Here is a link to Assignment 2. This lab was more tricky that I originally thought and I learned a lot of things about organization in flash. I had a lot of fun making this and I think it looks pretty good.

Interactive Map

This is a really interesting interactive map I found for Las Vegas. It lets you explore the different areas of Las Vegas and lets you zoom in for more detail on points of interest. I love the color choices and it gives the feeling that you are actually looking at Las Vegas at night! It gives you so many options to explore.

Assignment 1

Map of states voting on Super Tuesday for the Democrats. Produced in Flash.

First post of the semester!

Here is my link to a political map.

Just go to the the above link and click on "National Results" to see a map of current primary election info.