Module 1: Map Critique

How to make a Clean Map

Pasco County, Florida

The first week of Cartography class began with examining differences between good maps and bad maps. 

The first map provided is an example of a good map. I chose a map of Pasco County, Florida because this is where I live. I saw it in an airport magazine and have it hanging up at my desk at work. To me, this map it easy to understand what the creator is trying to show to the reader. The map is clean and great to look at and has all essential map elements except a legend, which I don't believe is really necessary given the information that is provided. Other essential map elements such a the north arrow, scale, title and even the inset map are in well placed areas. 

North American English Pronunciation

The second map is a complete mess. There is no flow to it, everything just mashed together. Overall this map is quite ugly. The title is "hard" to find, and there's even a second text to the right of it that could be considered part of the title but should possibly be a subtitle to the title itself. The colors of this map are horrible. The creator should have been more thoughtful when choosing colors that are more appealing to the eye vs whatever colors they just wanted to pick. This map is hard to read with all of the clutter on it too. Between the random lines that circle particular certain areas of North America, to the ugly distinctions, this map was all over the place. I'd recommend that this creator do one large map with page numbers to separate the map so that way they can give more detail to the reader without overwhelming them. 

Introduction to Cartography: Just Me

My name is Cody Vaughn and I am a student in the GIS Certificate Program and the University of West Florida

Darlington Raceway, 2017 Southern 500

Hey everyone, 

My name is Cody Vaughn and I live in Tampa, Fl. I was born in California (lived there very briefly), lived in Pennsylvania, Virginia and now Florida. 

I work for the local county in the Surveying and Mapping Division in the Platting department.

As far as Surveying goes, I have been doing this for five years. So I wouldn't really say I'm "new" to GIS, but I really wanted to take this class and get a better grasp on it and learn how to use ArcGIS so that hopefully I can be the one that people can lean on at work. In the future I'd like to be able to explore more career options that I can combine my experience with Surveying and what I will learn during this GIS program. 

In my free time, I love gaming on my PC, spending time with my dog, Chase and my girlfriend, Kaitlyn but mostly my dog (don't tell her I said that). I have a huge passion for watching NASCAR racing and attending races with my friends and family, I've been to over 100 races. We typically take our camper for a long weekend at race tracks such as Darlington, SC, Charlotte, NC, Martinsville, VA, Pocono, PA and a a lot of others.  

I'm really looking forward to meeting all of you and hope we all enjoy this class together! 

Attached is a link to my StoryMap. Thank you for taking a moment to view it!

StoryMap

 Module 6 Part 2: Georeferencing

The 3D scene depicted above is the location of the University of West Florida. I was tasked to build a 3D map of the campus, which included buildings, imagery, roads, and even LiDAR for elevation. This project began with geo-referencing the two image files using control points to building polygons that were already collected around the campus. I added a new building that was not previously on our map and then proceeded to add a new road that was also not there, they are highlighted in the bright green. After that I used a survey plat to georeference Heritage Hall on the UWF campus. 

 Module 6 Part 1: Georeferencing

The map above displays multiple ring buffers to calculate multiple sets of distances around a point. We were given a task to set a buffer area near an eagle nest site just east of the University of West Florida. By satellite images, we geolocated buildings and roads, we were able to determine the location of the campus. We then added our geolocated nest site for the eagles and went to work. We established that the two protective buffer zones should be 330 FT and 660 FT around the eagles site.

We then added essential map elements.