Ok, how come no one told me this? Blending modes in QGIS? I’m running the nightly build for 1.9, so I have no idea if this is new or old, but a little compositing in QGIS is very welcome… : Now, how the heck do I set transparency? Continue reading Compositing lands on the desktop– QGIS
I was playing recently with techniques for making text/labels in maps more readable in a map. We can use simple buffers to do this, but this isn’t always adequate. Take this example: which is a label on top of contours. It is adequately readable. If we show 2 ft contours as well, the map becomes somewhat cluttered: So, we apply the common technique of halo … Continue reading Cartographic tricks and tips– making text readable.
In the category of moderately new features in WordPress, I really appreciate the new WordPress Country Stats, with the nice touch of flags of the nations, and a map. As an inveterate map snob, however, the map drives me crazy: Why? Because choropleth maps are bad for showing count data, unless all the polygons are the same size. Look at the map above– France and … Continue reading WordPress Country Stats, a cartographers complaint
I have long lived in the desktop realm of ESRI, and expect ESRI products to be a part of my workflow for a long time to come. But, the time has come to delve in deeply with Quantum GIS. I’ve read from many sources that it has come of age as a desktop GIS. I tried it 4 years ago, along with its competitors in … Continue reading Using Quantum GIS for real work…
My favorite cartography book is Eduard Imhof’s Cartographic Relief Presentation. A few years back I picked this book up (translated to English) from ESRI press for $75 if memory serves me. Now it can be gotten for much cheaper. Imhof spends a lot of time on feature simplification and separation, a problem which keeps me up at night. For example, if you have a lot … Continue reading Going deeper into web cartography: future=past? (and Swiss cartographic genius)
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