Fantastic #1
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Hi @MtnBiker, I'm glad that the map is helping you in your research, if it helps, you should look up the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, where they have buildings of the time that may have been replaced with newer buildings as this map only shows what exists in 2008. The LA public library has a collection of these maps (some of them digitized). Adding the replaced buildings would be a great effort, which looks like OpenStreetMap has attempted to do. Thoughts? Your suggestion about the search is in the pipeline. It was a great feat to figure out how to even use Mapbox GL to make vector maps (the compiled dataset that I made to display on this map also contains building uses and heights at least in some cities), something I want to add but figure out how to display it, which leads to your second suggestion, do you mean about choosing a different color palette? or the sequence as it plays out? I'm open to improving the visual styling of the data, I'm wondering if you could point to some examples that have a visual appeal, I'm sure someone who reads this and is better at color choices than I, can chime in. Have you heard of GoogleMapsMania? If you search for building age, there are many great examples from other cities. Again thanks for the input, this is the reason I posted it up here on git to get feedback as well as interested people in collaborating to improve the map. |
If you’re asking for ideas on replaced buildings. Maybe something to indicate the building isn’t the original—an outline, a darker or lighter spot in the center of the building. And/or the older building could show up in the sequence with the newer building replacing as the decades change.
Yes, a different palette. Many try to do this and it’s difficult. I am not a good color person, but we should perceive the progression in time. I did some searching and came up with are often called Sequential (Color) Palettes. What I can’t know is how they will work with your page. One issue is the small size of the buildings. The second issue is buildings without data—they shouldn’t be part of the sequence, but shouldn’t stand out to obscure the others. Here are some links I found, somewhat in the order of usefulness. The latter ones say the same things in different ways. http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intelligence/rules_for_using_color.pdfOften referred to as an expert in the field and is about maps: ColorBrewer: Color Advice for Maps http://colorbrewer2.org/ Good overview: www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intelligence/rules_for_using_color.pdf http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intelligence/rules_for_using_color.pdf From a more technical point of view: HCL Color scheme | hcl wizard http://hclwizard.org/hcl-color-scheme/ Shows coding for the colors. May be for a specific language or program Choosing color palettes — seaborn 0.5.1 documentation http://stanford.edu/~mwaskom/software/seaborn/tutorial/color_palettes.html Lots of examples: Choosing Colormaps — Matplotlib 1.4.3 documentation http://matplotlib.org/users/colormaps.html More examples: Sequential Color Schemes http://www.personal.psu.edu/cab38/ColorSch/SchHTMLs/CBColorSeq.html Discussion may be interesting: graph - Is there a better color scale than the "rainbow" colormap? - Stack Overflow http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7251872/is-there-a-better-color-scale-than-the-rainbow-colormap If you took sequential coloring to the extreme, each year could be a different color (Edit: just looked at the source and see decade colors are png, but I don't know source is created, but probably difficult to achieve for probably little gain). But that might be too subtle. And don’t forget to leave room for 2010 and 2020 at least. Beyond my skills to figure our Mapbox and am amazed that something like what you have done can be accomplished.
Greg |
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@greg Awesome suggestions, On lost buildings, interesting approach, I can test to see. Thanks for the palette links, I think having certain options to switch on different palettes can offer researchers to use the map differently aside from the visualization as it stands now. I've been testing how to further the map by adding the heights to the buildings.
Testing a sample set for Downtown, the taller the building the more vivid the color along with a thicker outline. This is just a test, as if anything most of LA is low-rise except along the major corridors. Don't worry about helping with the coding, your input on the use and perspective are valuable. Since the code is posted here, you can see the development and learn as well. Shameless plug, there is a group call Maptime, it's for anyone coder and non-coder alike interested in learning the mapping tools and technologies, there might be one near your area. |
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Your plans for palette options sound good, let people do what they want. Will more vivid will work with the sequential palettes? Thicker outlines sounds like a good approach. What about 3D? Even if not hard to implement, small buildings would be hidden. The URL for Maptime HQ http://maptime.io/ was munged, so reposting it. Hope this one comes through better. Greg
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Hi Omar See you have a meeting tonight which unfortunately I can't make. I've looked at your code and am wondering what programs, tools, etc. it took to create your page. Of course I can't see what's on the linked website. And that required deciphering the Assessor's office data. How much did MapBox handle? Did you have to write the MapBox GL by hand? I assume what you wrote is what's on the main HTML page? And does that require knowing JavaScript I'm trying to figure out how much I'd have to learn to do what I'm trying to do. I'm not a programmer. I don't know any JavaScript. I learned HTML and CSS ten years ago, and haven't kept up with CSS3, JavaScript,etc.. I know a bit (and I'm not being modest, it's very little) of Ruby. Thanks for any comments. |
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Hi @MtnBiker - The code he wrote is here: https://github.com/cityhubla/LA_Building_Age/blob/master/index.html It's a bit of HTML with JavaScript, all on one page. Everything between This is the CSS: https://github.com/cityhubla/LA_Building_Age/blob/master/css/style.css |
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machkkoyasuda I think you've answered my question. Lines 7–675 were written by him manually and not by another higher level program such as Mapbox Studio, right? |
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Nice, I love that color palette/height idea! |
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Hi Greg! So sorry you couldn't make it, but we are having another meetup on the 23rd. We will have a tutorial on Mapbox Studio, one of the tools I used to make Built:LA. This is used to convert the data from shapefiles into a mbtiles which is what you see on the website. The tool that that reads the data on mbtiles and turns it into a map is called, Mapbox-GL. This wasn't coded by me but by many awesome people. As my good friend @machikoyasuda wrote, yes it is a bit of HTML with javascript. Lines 73-615 is what is needed to access the mbtiles and take the data in them and style them according to a specific type of information I want styled (colored, in this case, I am styling by decades). Keep in mind that I did this to serve (host) it on my own tileserver and not through Mapbox, who can host your mbtiles, (There is a free option to store 100mb, but my files were a total of 1.5GB and I took the chance to learn how to build my own server). If I did host my files on Mapbox, all the Javascript i needed would be between 618-633, which basically tells mapboxgl to build a map with the coordinates of LA at a specific zoom, loads a style (colors, which can also be defined in mapbox studio) and make it retrieve text when the mouse hovers over an object(feature), but you'll see it requires little code to make a map. There's a few extra lines of code needed to access your mbtiles from mapbox, but you'll get a quick map. I hope to have a series of tutorials of this that shows how I went about it. And the first being how to use Mapbox Studio, style your data and even OSM data and host it on Mapbox. I would use building data downtown, (or Boyle Heights) as a hands on project for MaptimeLA on the 23rd. Remember there is little coding, short of knowing CSS to use Mapbox Studio, and we all coach each other on how to learn. Hope to see you there! |
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Omar Thank you for responding. Looking forward to the tutorial. You’re putting several pieces together and I’m trying to get a handle on that. I’ll be looking at your project some more as the pieces start to sink in. Also working on a js tutorial. Wading through the beginning stuff, stuff I know, but not the syntax. Is the meeting July 23? I should be able to make that. On my calendar. Someone had asked about a house in our neighborhood and in looking I found a minor error (in itself unimportant, but maybe points to some data gap). At the southwest corner of Paseo de las Delicias and Via Monto Doro (D’oro) the house is missing on your map (location close to the center of the screen shots). The house is definitely really there and it looks to have been built in the 60s. Greg
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This is a fantastic resource. I am fascinated by this information. Particularly since I've been researching where my relatives lived at the end of the 19th and beginning of 20th century. I have recently been looking at pictures from the 20s in Boyle Heights.
I'm sure you have a long list of ideas for the site and I hope you and others continue to support it.
Two suggestions:
Thank you again, and I realize that your list is probably too long to consider these.
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