Presentation

Using CartoDB for Beautiful Online Maps

CartoDB is an online cloud based platform for storing and visualizing spatial data. It is the perfect tool for the third part of the workflow (outlined in the Introduction). You can sign up for a free account, which gives you 50Mb of storage space. Data can be collected with a smart phone or tablet with iForm, and brought directly into CartoDB.  It is a very intuitive platform. You can literally drag and drop a spreadsheet onto the CartoDB page and have the data upload to your account.  It will accept the most common geospatial file formats including: spreadsheets and comma delimited text files with addresses or coordinates, KML/KMZ, GPX, and shapefiles. Below is an example of a spreadsheet of Baltimore Dialysis Centers in CartoDB. This shows the spreadsheet in Data View .CartoDB Data ViewAfter telling CartoDB which columns contain the latitude and longitude values, the data can be viewed in Map View (below). Here the default Positron basemap is being used. There are a variety of basemaps to choose from including imagery, Stamen maps and Nokia maps.CartoDB Map ViewOnce multiple data layers have been uploaded you can create a visualization. Below is a map focusing on Balitmore Diabetes. It includes Baltimore neighborhoods classified by the number of diabetics, food deserts and dialysis centers.  CartoDB provides wizards and other tools for styling your data. The dynamic map can be accessed here: http://cdb.io/1G4xP7jCartoDB VisualizationVisualizations can be shared via hyperlinks and embedded into webpages.  CartoDB also has great documentation including:

Sign up for a free account and take it for a spin. On a related note Community Health Maps is almost done with a complete curriculum for community health mapping. It consists of six labs. The final lab shows you how to work with CartoDB from setting up an account to sharing a visualization. Stay tuned!

Community Health Maps Presenting at FOSS4G in Portland - September 2014

Kurt Menke will be presenting the Community Health Mapping project in Portland next month at FOSS4G. FOSS4G stands for Free and Open Source for Geospatial. It is the international open source GIS conference.FOSS4GIf you are nearby, or able to travel, it will be a great opportunity to learn more about the project including the workflow and how several groups have implemented it. The conference has eight concurrent tracks beginning Wednesday September 10th and ending on Friday September 12th. Conference talks will cover both new mapping technology and applications. The mapping technology will cover data collection, desktop analysis, cartography and web mapping. Over 1,000 attendees are expected. Mr. Menke's talk is scheduled for 1:00pm on Wednesday September 10th. Hope to see you there.