Agrarian Reform in Brazil - Bivariate Map

Source: IBGE, 2010

Like it was being said in the last map, when dealing with numeric data, there's two main ways of presenting it: colors (Cholorpleth Map) or symbol (Proportional Symbol Map).

However, maps get more interesting when they're presenting not only one variable, but two that may be related with each other. In that way, the analysis is much richer, making it possible to recognize patterns and finding reasons for such distribution.

Thus, the use of this both techniques together is one of the easiest ways to make this presentation. Also, since it's common, it's easier for the reader to understand it.

State University of Campinas - Reference Map

This was the second map, in the Geography Techniques class, where it was necessary to deal with generalization. The place being mapped was a personal choice, so in my case I mapped the region of my home university in Brazil. A satellite image was used as a base to digitize the features presented in the map.

The main challenges was to make the choice of what is going to be shown or not, considering it's not possible to show everything. It occured with the features, but also with the labels - specially on the street case, where there's a lot of features together, precluding a full labeling.

Forest Fires in Brazil - Proportional Symbol Map

Source: IBGE, 2010

When dealing with numeric data, it's common to use colors with different breaks to show the differences, however, the use of proportional symbols is also a good way to show information in a more impartial way.

In this case, data about forest fires in the brazilian states were collected and - by using the software Microsof Excel - the size of each circle was calculated. The major challenge was to deal with big circles fitting in small states.

Bike Racks at UWEC - GPS Based Map

This project focused on the GPS data collection with the Garmin Etrex units. Instead of only collecting the points where the Bike Racks were found, it was also included an attribute about its capacity. The reason is that the target public would like not only to know where they are, but also what are the possibilities of having a space to park their own bikes. With this analysis, it's possible to recognize some areas where it's easier to find an available space to park. However, to give more information to the reader, it would be interesting to add attributes like occupancy rates in each rack in different days of the week.

Choropleth Mapping and Classification Methods

When you're making a quantities map, where should you place the classification breaks and how many breaks should you use?

The purpose of this project was to show how different ideas can be presented depending on the Classification Method it's being used to make a Cholorpleth Map. In this case, American Ancestry in North Carolina state was an example of how different the same data can appear. It's clear by seeing the result of this project that Equal Interval usually doesn't have much difference between the features, with few exceptions; on the other hand, when using the quintile, a well distributed color is guaranteed.

Projection Distortion

Which one is the real South America? None.

In this exercise, the distortion of different projections was analyzed using the South America as an example. The transformation process from a 3D world into a 2D surface always will carry some sort of distortion, even though it can be minimized depending of the case.

The choice of the projection will depend mainly of the Area of Interest. In large scales, if the right projection is chosen, the distortion can be minimal. However, when dealing with small scales, this choice has to be seen with more attention. The projection has to fit the project purposes, however, it can often manipulate the reader's world-view - on purpose or not.

Africa - Reference Map

This map was the first map produced in the Geography Techniques class. The main objective was to use the five map elements (figure-ground, visual hierarchy, clarity, legibility and balance) to produce a reference map of the african countries.


The color scheme used was chosen considering it's a unique values map, so the color main goal is to grant the reader to distinguish one country from another. It was challenging to work with the label placement, specially in the north-west, where there's smaller countries where the label can be placed in.