HelpMeViz » Map

Maps – At a Loss

helpmeviz@gmail.com — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 01:00:41 +0000

Michael Taylor from ColdWater Economics writes in the following:

Dear HelpMeViz,

I wonder if you could give me some pointers. I am an economist, and my particular speciality is tracking global data. For this exercise, I am following approximately 400 datapoints a month, in Asia, Europe and the US. At the moment, I have made only very limited attempts to visualize the results, by simply publishing a 6wk trendline, drawn in Excel. Here’s how it looks:

And by region. . . .

Very standard, rather dull and even, I’d say, slightly confusing (for the regional chart).

What I’d like to do is produce a daily ‘heat map’ schematic featuring the US, Eurozone, Britain, China, Japan, NE Asia and Australia (possibly India too), with a representation of how the 6wk trends are developing in each of these areas. So if things are going well in the US, that bit of the map would show up in gradations of red (or whatever colour seems best), whilst if things are going badly in China, it shows up in the opposite colour. In an ideal world, it would also be nice if there could be a 3D element – in the case offered, the US rising red out of the page, whilst China sinks blue down below.

I have been looking for mapping tools able to do this, but have so far found nothing that can help. Do you have any ideas?

Best wishes

**UPDATE: The data are now available here.

The post Maps – At a Loss appeared first on HelpMeViz.

Mapping Program Participation by State

helpmeviz@gmail.com — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 21:00:17 +0000

A team of researchers is writing a paper on a particular kind of program for older adults in the U.S. (because the work is incomplete, they prefer not to share too many details). The number of programs varies by state and the states in turn vary by the share of the older adult population (age 65 years and older). Their first visualization—the map shown here (using this data)—plots the quintiles of the number of adults per program.

The researchers are seeking help on three issues. First, should the visualization plot (a) the number of programs per 100,000 people or (b) the number of older adults per program? Second, if they create the map, what software program should they use (this map was created using this ‘Map Maker tool‘)? Third, what color scheme can they use that is consistent with black and white printing?

***UPDATE***
The research team sent in this updated map and wanted to thank everyone for their help.

The post Mapping Program Participation by State appeared first on HelpMeViz.

State Migration Flows

helpmeviz@gmail.com — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 13:55:55 +0000

In late November, Chris Ingraham posted his interactive remake of a radial network diagram of state-level U.S. migration data. He’s asking the community for alternative approaches. Below is a sample of the text from the alternative on his bl.ocks page, but check out the full post for all the details. The data come from existing tabulations from the 2012 American Community Survey. (Please note that this is a request for help with an interactive visualization.)

“I thought there might be a better way to display these data, but I wasn’t right. I stuck with a map, drawing circles for each state sized by net migration (comings minus goings) and colored according to whether the state gained or lost residents overall. To get at individual state flows, click a state – paths radiate inwards and outwards from state to state, depending on the net migration flow between the two.”

The post State Migration Flows appeared first on HelpMeViz.