GIS 4930: Special Topics; Module 4: Open Source Analyze Part 1

This is the first of two weeks of analyze type work.   Although this week's effort mostly focused on analyzing how the data would be presented in a few weeks.  This was accomplished by utilizing web mapping tools and applications, which is built around presenting maps to the public in an open sourced manner.  This week we are transforming some of the prep work created last week into the web forum in preparation of distributing it to the masses.  The overall objectives this week are as followed:

1. Navigate through, and add layers to Tilemill

2. Gain familiarity with Leaflet

3. Use tiled layers and plug-ins in a web map

The main theme to all of the above objectives before looking at them individually is that they are open source!  That means anyone has the ability to acquire them, learn about them, and in most cases contribute to the community with them. 

Tilemill is an interactive mapping software predominately used by cartographers and journalists to create interactive maps for sharing with the public.  Leaflet is a javascripting utility which allows you to code html web maps for display, much like the one linked below. The layer tiling mentioned in the last objective was accomplished with some basic html code using Notepad, and shared on a webmapping host. 

The Web Map I created displays the end result of this week's efforts.  It combines the objectives mentioned above with the data we looked at last week for food deserts in the Pensacola, FL area.  Every feature or option on this map falls into one of the objectives above.  However, after thoroughly reading through the instructions numerous times, ensuring I didn't skip a step, I was unable to get the tiled layer function to work properly.  My legend is visible, however, there is not an option to turn on or off the layers.  I think there may have been a step missing from the instructions.  Nevertheless, I was able to get the find function to appear in the lower left.  The points, polygons, and circle are also very specific.  Each of these elements is an individual block or segment of code which was pre-thought out to contribute to the map in this specific manner.  This was all done to get familiar with these applications and get ready to present my own specific area exploring food deserts in a couple weeks.