Cartographic Fundamentals

Part 1: Map of my Terrain 


         Map making is an essential skill to have, knowing what needs to be included in a map and displaying data correctly and accurately is fundamental base in geography. Every map should include a north arrow, scale bar, locator map, a watermark and data sources. The data in figure 1 was collected near the beginning of the semester and it represents a homemade terrain model at a small scale. The model was made in a sandbox and the data was recorded and brought into Microsoft Excel and then ArcMap and finally ArcScene. Figures 2-5 were collected at the Hadlyville Cemetery using a DJI Phantom 30 at an altitude of 50 meters. Hadlyville cemetery is located in the southwest portion of Eau Claire county. The purpose of this lab is to be able to correctly make and display maps with data that was collected personally and then also with other data sets that were provided.

Figure 1

          Displayed above in Figure 1 is data that relates to the previous lab in which a elevation terrain model was constructed and a survey was completed. The map in the upper left hand corner was generated in ArcMap and it is a hillshade over laid with a spline of the sandbox data. In that illustration the elevation changes are noticeable, but not to the same extent as the other four illustrations below which came from ArcScene 3D. The four images in the bottom of figure one show how the sandbox looked from each angle all the way around. Each angel does its part in giving the viewer a more realistic idea of what the real sandbox had looked like. In each angle the origin or (0,0) changed and the the orientation of the north arrow was shifted to ensure data integrity. The high elevation values are depicted by red and the low elevation values are a green/ blue. The largest mountain/ hill in the elevation model is in the northeast portion of the sand box and it is clearly shown in all five of the maps. The crater in the northwest portion of the sandbox showed up nicely, especially in the 3D ArcScenes. The goal was to model the indentation after a erupted volcano and it showed up clearly. On the southern area of the maps there is a valley that spans most of the sandbox and just to the south of that there is a small rise in elevation that goes to the extent of the survey area.

Part 2: Maps using data with Attributes, Hadlyville Cemetery

Figure 2

          Figure 2 above illustrates the year of death of each person by grave. There is a somewhat even distribution of the year of death. Though the 1946-2006 tend to catch the viewers eye because they have the largest proportional symbol. The rows in the cemetery are pretty apparent here, though the graves are not even spaced. Year of death is an important variable to look at here because there may be links between age of the grave and if the stone is still standing, also the family location, and the specific year of death. There is no true spatial pattern of the year of death in the cemetery as a whole. To clarify there are years of death from 1946-2006 in every corner of the cemetery, similarly there are also years of deaths from 1859-1877 fairly evenly distributed throughout the cemetery.

Figure 3

           Figure 3 shows whether or not there was a grave stone at the grave sight or not. The first issue to be discussed here is why some come back as no data. To be honest, there is no explanation for why there is no data, either the headstone was standing or it was not. This would be a good question to ask whoever completed the data collections. This is only brought up because there is a significant portion of the cemetery that has no data. For the most part, the majority of graves are standing, there is only five graves that were marked as not standing graves. There are two in the east portion of the map, two in the center and one in the west side of the cemetery. Now referring back to figure 1, it was important to check if the graves that were not standing were older graves because that could account for them not being there. The headstones have went through over 100 years of Wisconsin Climate and this most likely accounts for the reason they are not there, also it could have been that in that time head stones were not as popular due to financial strain.

Figure 4

          Figure 4 is a map that shows the last name of each person buried at that grave. This is something that is very interesting when looking at cemetery's because family members are often buried together. In the northeast portion of the map there are five Mcdonalds, in the further northeast section there are three Sessions. After further examination it is clear to see that there are many other names that have multiple graves in the cemetery. This is because families often buy multiple grave sites so they can be buried near loved ones. One interesting thing to note is that in the southwest corner of the cemetery there are several Hadley's, the significance is that this could have been the founder of the cemetery or possibly even Hadleyville. Referring back to figure 2, the graves do match up as being from 1859-1877 which is the oldest data that is recorded.

Figure 5

           Figure 5 shows the specific year of death for each grave that the data was available. This is significant because it can give a better idea of the links between group family burials, grave stone condition and other information than just the proportion symbols map that is shown in figure 1. In the northeast corner of the cemetery there are four Sessions buried, the reason attention is being brought to this is to note that the burial lots were most likely purchased at the same time. The top Sessions was buried in 1904, then the most recent is 2006. Over 100 years apart and that family is still getting buried near other family members. Another pattern that should be noted is that in the western third of the cemetery the majority of the years of death are from pre 1900. As stated when discussing figure 2 there is not a clear spatial representation of this, but that is because the proportional symbols for years of death post 1900 are significantly bigger and therefore it is easy to assume they carry more weight, though they do not.