In the final lab of our Cartographic Skills course, we explored the fascinating world of Volunteered Geographic Information and how everyone can get involved in disseminating geographic knowledge (and opinions). The lab, however, focused on Google Earth and how to import data from ArcMap into Google's free and widely used product. While the depth of functionality and data manipulation of Google Earth may not be near that of ArcMap, it is much easier to use for those not versed in GIS software. Additionally, data imported from ArcMap can be made widely available to anyone who may desire to see and use it. In the map above, I imported the dot density map from last week's lab into Google Earth. Once imported, certain properties of each layer can be altered within Earth (such as transparency) or a layer can be turned off. The latter was useful for the second portion of the lab, wherein we created a Google Earth tour of southern Florida. I began the tour with the dot density layer turned on. As the view zoomed in to individual cities, I turned the layer off so as not to clutter the view.
Overall, this lab was a fun experimentation with a product, Google Earth, that I never viewed as being capable of such interesting work. I look forward to playing with its capabilities. On the topic of fun, we were asked to find an image from Google Earth that we liked for this blog post. The first image below is of Zion National Park in Utah, one of my favorite places to explore whenever I get a chance. The last image is of Area 51, a place I have only been to the gates of and would love to explore if the security wasn't so tight.
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