Stanford Geospatial Center

This workshop covers general design topics for better mapping. There will be a short discussion on general visual design concepts with a focus on issues and best practices for GIS mapping. Hands on sessions will cover a narrower set of the most common issues:

Why design matters in map making?
Most common GIS map design issues
Establishing a good Visual Hierarchy
Methods for simplifying busy or complex data
How to use (and not abuse) color in maps
Map layout

In addition to the planned topics in this workshop it will also be possible to cover other topics based on student interests:

Small Multiple layouts
Maps to animated GIFs
Working with design software (Illustrator and Inkscape)

Participants should have some level of familiarity with QGIS (see our QGIS 101 Introduction, here: https://arcg.is/0z9y8b)

Download QGIS for your operating system, here: https://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html

What is GIS?
Spatial Data Models and Formats
Projections and Coordinate Systems
Basic Data Management
The QGIS User Interface
Simple Analysis using Visualization.
NOTE: Users should prepare for this workshop by installing the QGIS software appropriate for their operating system and downloading the data to their local hard drive.

Software Setup
This workshop was created using QGIS version 3.12, which is the long-term release. If you are in new user we suggest installing the latest long-term release for your operating system. While the latest beta release contains extra features and functionality, it often and also contains bugs and limited functionality, which can be frustrating to new users.

To download QGIS for your operating system go to QGIS.org and click on the download link.

https://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html

Mac users, specifically, and others more generally, may find the following setup instructions useful:

https://github.com/mapninja/Earthsys144/blob/master/CleanQGISInstallationforMac.md

Meet Earth Engine
Google Earth Engine is a geospatial processing service. With Earth Engine, you can perform geospatial processing at scale, powered by Google Cloud Platform. The purpose of Earth Engine is to:

Provide an interactive platform for geospatial algorithm development at scale
Enable high-impact, data-driven science
Make substantive progress on global challenges that involve large geospatial datasets
Google Earth Engine combines a multi-petabyte catalog of satellite imagery and geospatial datasets with planetary-scale analysis capabilities and makes it available for scientists, researchers, and developers to detect changes, map trends, and quantify differences on the Earth's surface.

Presenter: Stace Maples

Please note that this workshop is for Stanford University affiliates, only.

Description: The Earth Engine API (application programming interface) provides the ability to create your own algorithms to process raster and vector imagery. This session is geared toward people who would like to analyze satellite and vector data. The session will be hands-on, using the Earth Engine Javascript code editor.

The first part of the class will be an overview of the Google Earth Engine Platform, and Remote Sensing, in general. The second half will focus on accessing imagery, creating composites, and running analyses over stacks of images, computing statistics on imagery, creating charts and exporting the results of your analyses.

Prerequisites: No previous experience with Earth Engine or JavaScript is necessary for the beginner workshop, but programming experience, basic knowledge of remote sensing and/or GIS are highly desirable. Willingness to learn programming is required. Participants with no programming experience will require additional attention.