G.Hudson Mastering GIS

Week 2 of GIS 6005 focused on Coordinate Systems. At this stage, coordinate systems are something that almost all GIS students are aware of, however, this module went into great detail. We went back to the basics, learning about the earth and earth coordinates, followed by getting a deeper understanding of scale, how it can be calculated and how it can be determined if the scale of a map is unknown. Lastly, we dove into projections, gaining an understanding of the various projections and their properties, including when they are most and least appropriate. As a result, we were tasked with deciding on an appropriate coordinate system for an area of interest of our choice. I chose the US state Tennessee.  Map of Tennessee, USA, The coordinate system I felt was best suited for Tennessee is NAD 1983 StatePlane Tennessee FIPS 4100 (US Feet). This projection is the most accurate projection for the State that encompasses the entire state. This meant that I did not have to choose a projection

 For the first week of the course Communicating GIS (GIS 6005) we were tasked with learning about map design, including the five map design principles, and typography, including the various fonts, colors and sizes suitable for various labeling purposes. This post will focus on the five design principles, which can be seen in the map below.  The following are the design principles and how they were applied: 1. Visual Contrast – This map used a fairly bright orange color to represent the recreation centers which contrasted with the muted green color of Travis County. The use of a rich green color for the golf courses and bright blue for the waterways also added contrast.  2. Legibility – Firstly, the symbol for the recreation centers is a circle, which is easily noticed, distinguished and read by the map user. This map also contains labels for the streets. As the map is fairly small the labels needed to be small enough that they did not detract from the main features of the map but large