Christopher Pollard, Manager, Geospatial Application Development @DVRPC
cpollard@dvrpc.org, @CRVanPollard
- Overview of CartoDB
- Getting started
- Importing data into CartoDB
- Visualizing data in CartoDB (style wizard, infowindows, filters, cartocss)
- Publishing your visualization
- CartoDB Deep Insights (coming summer 2016)
CartoDB Editor - https://cartodb.com/editor/
Easy to use web map editor helping people visualize and analyze geospatial data
- Connect, collect, and manage location data
- Analyze and understand where the impact or trends are occurring
- Discover insights, patterns, and visually share that information
CartoDB Platform - https://cartodb.com/platform/
A set of high performance APIs and tools to deliver geospatial applications with big data and extensible location analytic capabilities. CartoDB Editor is actually an application built on top of the CartoDB Platform.
If you don't have an account, go sign up: https://cartodb.com/signup
This is where you can view and manage your maps and datasets
- Shapefile
- KML/KMZ
- GeoJson
- CSV
- Spreadsheets (Excel or OpenDocument)
- GPX
- OSM
There are different ways to import data into CartoDB. It can be files you have stored locally or datasets that you can connect to through Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, Twitter, ArcGIS Server, MailChimp, and SalesForce.
Today, we are going to use several local datasets that focus on Bicycle Planning. I have already downloaded and have them ready for our use today. Please copy the following URLs listed below and paste them, one at a time, into your CartoDB importer.
-
DVRPC Bicycle Counts (DVRPC GIS Portal)
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/crvanpollard/PWT2016_CartoDB/master/data/dvrpc_bicycle_counts.csv -
Philadelphia Bike Network (Open Data Philly)
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/crvanpollard/PWT2016_CartoDB/master/data/phl_bike_network.zip -
Census Tract Boundaries 2010 (Census Geography)
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/crvanpollard/PWT2016_CartoDB/master/data/censustracts2010.zip -
Census 2009 - 2013 ACS Demographic Profiles (DVRPC GIS Portal)
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/crvanpollard/PWT2016_CartoDB/master/data/asc2013_tract_data.csv
This is where you can view, sort, modfiy, add, and merge datasets together. Very similar to excel and other spreadsheet interfaces.
If you don't have a Geometry field or Lat/Long in your dataset you can use CartoDB's Georeferencing tool to be able to map your data by street address, city name, postal code, administration region, or IP address.
You can also merge datasets that have a common field or attribute that are the same data type (number to number, string to string).
We will do this with our Census Tract shapefile and ACS 2009-2013 Demographic Profile data.
CartoDB comes with some great map design tools that allow the user to pick from multple layer styles (simple, cluster, choropleth, category, bubble, torque, heatmap, intensity, and density).
You can also turn on infowindows which allow users to click or hover over a feature and view specific attribute information. You, as the map maker, can select which attributes you allow your users to view.
There is also a function that will allow you to set custom filters or parameters on your layer based off attribute information. For instance, in the map below, the filter is set to only show bicycle counts that have an ADB over 100.
If you wish to have more advanced map styling you can do that with CartoCSS editor.
Once you are ready to make a map you click the Visualize button and you will now have several map layout tools available. Here you can add a title, text, annotaion, and images, as well as, select from other map options.
Once you are ready to share your visualization you click the Publish button. There are a few options to choose from such as: a link that you can send via email or social media, embed your map into a blog or website, or add it to an existing or custom web mapping applications using CartoDB.js.
Predictive analytics and on-the-fly visualiztion that will drastically improve CartoDB workflows and analysis.
Key take aways:
- An actionable dashboard with widgets (charts and forms)
- High Performance Analytics (HPA) that not only maps your data but now performs analysis on LARGE amounts of data...really FAST and quick
- Data Augmentation (DA) builds a relationship between 2 datasets and everything that surrounds that data. Data Augmentation is a series of algorithms that geocode the datasets, performs a spatial join, and adds valuable demographic data (population, income, employment, etc..) to your targeted dataset.
CartoCSS Reference Sheet - http://ebrelsford.github.io/talks/2014/Methods3/week7/materials/cartocss-reference.pdf
This handy CartoCSS Reference Sheet is a quick guide for beginners to CartoCSS
CartoDB Academy - http://academy.cartodb.com
The CartoDB Academy is great for recapping the basics, starting to use their APIs, and growing your design capabilities.
Odyssey - http://cartodb.github.io/odyssey.js/
A simple way for journalists, designers, bloggers, and others to publish stories that combine narratives with map interactions. Allows creative minded people to weave interactive stories with images, maps, and compeling narritives.
Preparing CSV files for use in CartoDB - https://vimeo.com/channels/cartodb/100105203
Using Column Join to Merge Tables - https://vimeo.com/channels/cartodb/100105201
