more stuff

Analytics/GeospatialDataSources.md

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+# Sources of Geospatial Data
+
+* **DIVA-GIS**
+    * [http://www.diva-gis.org/Data](http://www.diva-gis.org/Data)
+    * Free country-level and global level data
+* **FAO GeoNetwork**
+    * [http://www.fao.org/geonetwork/srv/en/main.home](http://www.fao.org/geonetwork/srv/en/main.home)
+    * Satellite data for ag, fishery, food security
+* **Natural Earth**
+    * [http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/](http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/)
+    * Public domain GIS vector/raster datasets, physical and natural world features
+* **OpenStreetMap**
+    * [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Downloading_data](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Downloading_data)
+    * Open and crowdsourced data globally
+* **OpenTopography**
+    * [https://opentopography.org](https://opentopography.org)
+    * Global LIDAR data
+* **OpenAddresses**
+    * [https://openaddresses.io](https://openaddresses.io)
+    * Free, open global address collection
+* **PBC GIS**
+    * [http://www.pbcgis.com/data/](http://www.pbcgis.com/data/)
+    * GIS, CAD, satellite
+* **USGS EarthExplorer**
+    * [https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov](https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov)
+    * Remote sensing, satellite, aerial imagery
+* **Wikipedia List of Data Sources**
+    * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GIS_data_sources](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GIS_data_sources)
+

Analytics/GeospatialPriorities.md

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+# Geospatial Learning Priorities
+
+1. Data formats
+    * Shapefiles
+    * GeoJSON
+    * KML
+1. Data storage
+    * PostGIS
+1. Analytical methods
+1. GIS composition
+1. Display methods

Analytics/NotesOn_GeospatialDataAndAnalysis.md

@@ -32,4 +32,104 @@ ISBN 9781491940556
 
 # 2. Core Concepts: Key Issues and Extreme Overgeneralizations
 
+## Sourcing Spatial Data and Global Information Systems
+
+* GIS provides tools for "storing, processing, aggregating, analyzing, displaying, and visualizing spatial data, or any data that holds location information."
+* Common mapping software by application type and focus
+    * Backend / Database
+        * PostGIS/PostgreSQL
+        * MySQL + Spatial
+        * IBM DB2
+        * GSTiles
+        * ArcGIS 
+        * Oracle Spatial
+    * Application Server
+        * GeoServer
+        * GeoWebCache
+        * Tomcat
+        * ArcGIS Server
+        * Autodesk MapGuide
+        * ERDAS APOLLO
+        * Intergraph GeoMedia
+    * Frontend / UI
+        * OpenLayers
+        * OpenStreetMap
+        * Google Maps
+        * Bing Maps
+        * CARTO
+        * Mapbox
+        * GeoScore API
+        * QGIS
+        * ArcGIS Desktop
+        * Google Earth
+        * uDig
+* "Among contemporary practitioners there's a clear preference for open source tools and an evolving disdain for their proprietary counterparts.
+
+### Formats for Low-Scale Spatial Data
+
+* Low-scale data may not be packaged in geospatial formats like shp, kml, gml.
+* May show up as excel, csv, geojson, svg, or standard image formats, and even PDF
+* The data may be sorted into broader categories of vector and raster
+* Common raster formats:
+    * Esri Grid
+    * Binary
+    * Geographic Tagged Image File Format (GeoTIFF)
+    * JPEG 2000
+    * ASCII
+* Common Vector formats
+    * shapefile (shp, shx, dbf)
+    * Keyhole markup language (kml)
+    * Geography Markup Language (gml)
+    * Cartesian coordinate system (xyz)
+    * File Geodatabase (gdb)
+    * Personal Geodatabase (mdb)
+    * OpenStreetMap (osm, pbf)
+    * GeoJSON (geojson)
+
+### Assessign and Transforming Spatial Data
+
+* Begin by assessing the format of your data, consider the limitations of that format
+* Having assessed it, you can do some exploratory map making, which will involve getting it into a format appropriate to your experience and tool chain
+* "The developers of the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library maintain a simple but thorough table of outstanding vector formats in OGR, along with their requirements to compile and georeferencing capabilities. GDAL provides raster and, together with OGR, also vector data models that are loosely aligned with the OpenGIS Simple Features Reference Implementation spec (OGR stands for 'OpenGIS Reference')."
+* More opaque geoformats like shapefiles can be queried with Spark packages like Spark-DBF, that queries database format files (.dbf) with SparkSQL.
+* In general, the mapmaking process will have steps like:
+    1. Collect data
+    1. Consider data layers for number, type, complexity
+    1. Develop questions, interrogate, and query data
+    1. Prepare and clean data; georeference or geocode
+    1. Analyze data--aggregate datasets, run regressions and statistical processes
+    1. Design and deliver results in various formats (web maps, print maps, maps with design flourishes)
+
+## Systems of Layers Plus Planes for Making Maps
+
+* For paper mapping, collections would carry paired works: an atlas that showed landscapes and coordinates, and a gazetteer that provided points with standard naming, points of interest, version history, and semantic or relational context.
+* The distinction has largely been lost in the move to digital mapping, but you still need contextual clarification of mapped information.
+* "Well-structured maps provide multiple layers of contextual data, establishing the basic physical and political boundaries of our world usefully, without cluttering the interface. Good maps establish a visual hierarchy in conventions and context that help viewers prioritize their focus on a map and meaningfully appreciate the information layers."
+
+### Tools for Adding Context to Spatial Datao
+
+* "One might think of a gazetteer as a tool that applies encyclopedic context to geospatial visualizations."
+* "However, what a gazetteer does is subtler than a simple mashup. [...] Gazetteers provide important metadata that supplements mapmaking, and they are the source of your modern web map layers, labels, and nuance that will underscore the type of context you communicate to your viewers."
+* "In thinking about the requirements of a gazetteer, we begin to appreciate how geospatial visualization quickly outgrows small-scale tools"
+
+### Layering in Maps
+
+* Interactive maps that provide pan and zoom have to adjust considerably as the user interacts with them.
+* Much of that adjustment must happen at the basemap layer
+* In thematic maps the basemap is only the first layer, and gives context to the data layers applied above it
+* Most geo apps require some kind of tiling and tessellation to coordinate features to a specific level of resolution
+* Fast scrolling leads to delayed tile loading
+* Architecture of a web map as designed by Beth Schecter of Maptime:
+    * Basemap (lowest layer)
+    * tile layer
+    * UTF grid
+    * vector layers
+
+### Mapmaking tools
+
+* There are numerous free tools for small scale point data
+* Be cautious about relying on free services, as they can be removed without warning
+
+### Unpacking Multilayered Maps
+