Esri

1 month ago | esri.com | Heather Smith |Bern Szukalski |John Nelson

When someone asks me for help improving their map, my advice is almost always to simplify. A simpler map is easier to design and easier to read. When it comes to visual communication, less is more. Try using fewer layers, fewer colors, and fewer words. Two places where simplification is especially impactful are pop-ups and symbols.

1 month ago | esri.com | Lauren Tierney

Wildfires continue to make headline news, most recently the fires surrounding the greater Los Angeles area. When I worked as a journalist mapping the news, we were tasked with locating fires, communicating the size of major fires, and mapping the environmental impacts. As climate change fuels more intense fires, it is important to visually communicate the severity of these events for people to better understand the scale and scope of these natural disasters.

1 month ago | esri.com | Jen Johnson

ArcGIS Blog As cities grow, so does the need for sustainable energy. Did you know that there are compact wind turbines that can silently operate on rooftops providing power back to the energy grid while blending into the urban skyline?  These small but mighty turbines can help offset energy waste while generating clean energy, however, finding the right locations to install them can be tricky.

2 months ago | esri.com | Heather Smith |John Nelson

Choropleth maps are filled areas of color representing quantitative data. Normalization is an important step in making choropleth maps. The goal of normalization is to allow for meaningful comparisons across features. How do you know if you need to normalize your data? How should you normalize it? How can you tell if normalization is working? What is the point? These short videos share advice, examples, and analogies to help answer these questions and explain normalization for choropleth maps. Video #1.

2 months ago | esri.com

The Open Space Institute, a conservation nonprofit based in New York uses GIS to breathe new life into old railways with major greenway initiative that engages residents.