MangoMap Showcase: UN-REDD Program Countries

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development. “REDD+” goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

This interactive map showcases countries participating in the REDD program and uses FAO forest change data as a backdrop.

Link to the map

Map Showcase: Elected Members in Australia - GIS by Yellow Dot

In today’s map showcase we take a look at a map produced by Patrick Burke of Yellow Dot Australia. He created the map for his client that’s a charity interested in aid and politician, the map showcases how MangoMap can be used to display the distribution of voters in each electorate as pushpins in correlation with exiting electoral data displayed as thematic layers.

Link to the map: Elected Members - GIS by Yellow Dot

Unclutter Your Maps with Clustered Pushpins

Are you tired of maps where all of your point markers or pushpins are overlapping each other and practically colouring in the whole screen?

Messy points

Yes we were too and that’s why we introduced the clustered pushpin feature. When two pushpins will occupy the same area on the screen then they will be grouped into a cluster. This cluster contains a number that lets us know how many are in the cluster and further more if we move our mouse over the cluster the area that the points occupy on the map will be highlighted!

Clean and tidy clustered points [Link to Map]

Pushpin clustering can be setup on any point, line or polygon layer in seconds and here’s how:

1. Click the feature button in the admin side bar
2. Check the radio button “pushpins”
3. Choose the layer you wish to add pushpins for from the drop-down
4. Press Save

In the case of point layers you want to hide the point markers from your map image and only show the overlayed pushpins, to achieve this complete the following steps:

1. Go to Layer Settings in the admin side bar
2. Choose the layer with the markers that you wish to hide
3. Click the change symbol button
4. Uncheck the “Enable Fill Style” checkbox
5. Change the stroke style to “none” from the dropdown menu
6. Press save
7. Press the “General” tab at the top of the window
8. Check the “Do not display this layer in the map legend” checkbox
9. Press save

Slide to Compare with MangoMap

Did you know that MangoMap allows your to easily create maps with a slide bar that can be dragged to compare two different layers?

ComeCheck out my Workshop at Brisbane RSGIS Unconference

Later this afternoon I’ll be heading off to Brisbane for RSGIS Unconference.

If you’re in town please come check out my workshop that’s being held between 3:15 and 4:45. It’s the end of the day and everyone’s going to be tired so I’m going to deliver a lively (at times tongue in cheek) presentation that will hopefully liven everyone up.

The workshop is a follow up to the free ebook I recently released titled “Online GIS: Meet the Cloud Publication Platforms that Will Revolutionize our Industry”.

The book has been downloaded over 2000 in the three weeks since it was released and has generated quite a lot of chatter.

We will take a look at ArcGIS Online, CartoDB, GeoCommons, GISCloud, MapBox and of course MangoMap.

At the end of the workshop you will know what each of these platforms offer, who they are geared towards and which product in best suited to your own very unique skill and use cases.

I’m going to set aside a good block of time at the end so we can open it up into a Q&A session and group discussion. Please come check it out, it’s going to be a blast!

Sessions: http://rsgis-camp.appspot.com/Sessions

I’m going to be in town until Sunday, so if you would like to meet up for a beer or a chat, just give me a ping. I’m also more than happy to come to your office and talk with your team about MangoMap or cloud GIS in general.

You can get me at chris@mangomap.com or @ChrisInCambo

New free ebook release, Maps in the Cloud – A Comparison of Online GIS and Web Mapping Platforms

Learn about a new generation of cloud based web mapping systems that are going to change the way we share and interact with geospatial data forever. With helpful insights, Maps in the Cloud shows you the stand out features, limitations, workflows, pricing and optimal use cases of each platform.

You’ll quickly learn how to decide which system is best suited to certain types of projects , whether you want to quickly create a web map of your data to share with a small group of colleagues or deploy a map that will be the backbone of your consumer facing web startup.

If you’re a mid to senior level GIS analyst, web developer or a casual user of geospatial data, you’ll discover how to pick a platform that helps your create stunning interactive web maps that match your existing skill set and fulfil the requirements of your target users.

You can download here: Online GIS

MangoMap Release: Clustered Pushpins, Mouse Over to Highlight and more

Pushpins

This great new feature allows any layer, be it a point, line or polygon into a pushpin layer with the click of a button. For lines and polygons the centroid of the feature is used. We’ve also added clustering which groups overlapping pushpins into  clusters, this stops the map from being completely obscured by pushpins in layers with a high density of features. It’s extremely quick and I’m sure and I’m sure it will make a great addition to your map!

Mouseover Feature Highlight

Add an extra level of interactivity to your maps with the feature highlight. As the user moves their mouse over the map the underlying layers will be highlighted, this is a great way encourage users to interact with the map and explore the underlying data. Once again it couldn’t be simpler, adding a mouseover feature highlight is just a single click.

Address Search

As if attribute search and advanced search queries weren’t enough, we’ve now added address search. Just plug in an address anywhere in the world and off you go. Our address search is powered by OpenStreetMap and MapQuest as we wanted an address search that everyone could use, not just those searching for locations in Europe and North America. It even works great here in Phnom Penh, Cambodia!

Speed Improvements

We’ve been making some pretty big tweaks under the hood to make everything a even more nippy. Firstly tiles now load more quickly, especially in the administration panel where the tiles are being drawn in real time rather than retrieved from a cache. We’ve also improved the speed of the search, the print and the highlighting of features when using search of identify.

Interface Improvements

We are continually tweaking things to make the experience even more user friendly, this is an ongoing process and we have rolled out several big improvements in this release. The most notable is the new Map Features button. Now all advanced map functionality, such as password protection, search, print, pushpins etc can be activated in one place, using one simple form. Controlling your map features, couldn’t be simpler.

Interactive Story Map: Could Hurricane Sandy be New York’s Fukushima ? #sandy #frankenstorm

UPDATE: Map has been updated with the latest path predications as of 5pm EDT October 30th.

Interesting Map about politicians salaries worldwide using a GDP to salary ratio - Direct link to map: http://ow.ly/em90E #edtech #storymap

Build Powerful Side by Side Comparison Maps - The “Slide to Compare” Template

When building maps that tell the story of their data you often come across scenarios where you would like the user to be able to compare two layers. The simplest method is just turning a layer on and off but if you’re looking for a more elegant solution then look no further than the new “Slide to Compare” template in MangoMap.

As you can see in the example below that shows the change in Cambodia’s forest cover between 1997 and 2006 a map slider is especially suited to maps where we would like to highlight the change between two datasets over a period of time.

View Full Sized Map

The slider doesn’t only offer greater visual impact for the map user, it also allows the user to interact with the two layers and focus on particular areas of interest. If you would like to add this functionality to one of your maps simply select the “Slide to Compare” template from the template list in your maps administration panel.

Screenshot: