Dot Pop!

This weeks class focused on creating a "dot density" map. Essentially, it's a map that has a lot of little dots that represents certain data (in our case, one dot representing many, one-to-many). We had to create a map showing population density in South Florida. Each dot represents 5,000 people. The interesting part about dot mapping with one-to-many dots that they are randomly distributed and do not correspond to geographic points. Though I tried so hard to get the dots to only appear within urban areas, ArcGIS being the ever expensive glitchy  program it is, crashed repeatedly. So I had to make do with excluding the dots from the water layer.

I created this map entirely in ArcGIS, never using AI once (I know, I know, I can't believe it either. It's such a good looking map). The first step in creating any map is figuring out the base layers and the colors to use. I went with natural colors. A blue background (the sea) and a light green for the south Florida area. You'll notice a grayed out section of Florida to the north. This is the county layers from previous modules. I decided to include this layer to create continuity instead of making south Florida look like it had been hacked off and is floating in a nebulous space.It think it's quite clear that the green area is the area we're concerned with. For the water layer, I used a layer from a previous module as opposed to the one given to us. I did this because, the water layer you see is more refined and shows major water sources. The layer given to us for Module 10 was all water and instead of taking hours to clean up that layer, I took the easy route and just clipped this layer! ( I think it was from my Intro to GIS class). For the colors, a dark blue for the lakes and a lighter blue for the streams. As for the wetlands,I went with the ESRI wetland but removed the background color and changed the foreground color to blue. By removing the background color, it allows the wetland feaure to blend into the green of the county layer map. For the urban areas, I went with the color you see. I think it's easy to see on the map while not conflicting with the colors. Essentially, it's not jarring to the eye. I then included an insert map using a US State boundary shape file I had on my computer. Next was the cities. I went with the following cities because I felt they gave the best reference points on either coast. Originally, I was using the city picture to represent the cities on the map, however, when the dots were added, the cities became covered in red dots and it was hard to see not aesthetically pleasing. Instead, I went with the circle dot and turned it blue. It's easier to see when the dots were added. The dots, I decided to go with red. Red is easy to see against blue and green. Also, the red made the dots the most prominent feature.

For the dots, I tried to have them mask by the urban layer. However, every time I attempted to mask it to be only in the urban area, Arc crashed. I tried changing the ordering of the layers. I tried deleting everything and relayer it and masking it different times in different ways. But every time I selected the urban layer and try to mask the dots to only appear there, it crashed. So I had to settle with excluding the water layer. This then inspired me to write a summary about the map (something we've done on other maps in the class and in the intro to GIS course). I wanted to make it clear that the dots are not geographic points. (Not one to one dots). Originally, I went with dots that represented 15,000 people but I felt it wasn't accurate. Instead, I went with each dot representing 5,000 people.

Dot Density map of overall population in South Florida. As the disclaimer explains above, the dots are not geographic points. The map was created entirely in ArcGIS.