Mapmaking and Symbology
1. Loading into Map Editor
a. When logged in and on the homepage, click on the "Data Sources" button on the top right.
b. In the Data Sources page, click on the "Data Manager" dropdown button.
c. When displayed, the dropdown menu should show the "Map Editor" button. Click that to load into the Freight Atlas Map Editor.
2. Navigation
Inside the Map Editor, you will find basic elements of navigation:
a. In the top left corner you will find the layers panel. Upon first loading into the Map Editor, you will select or create a new map to modify or view. In this example, I am using "Dairy Cow Inventory by County (Fig 23)"
b. When a map is loaded in, you will find the map settings panel in the top right corner. Information about each layer is now shown in the top left panel.
1. The "Style" section shows symbology settings.
a. "Type" allows you to symbolize the layer selected in the layers panel.
b. "Color By" lets you choose a column to symbolize with.
c. "Scale" helps you choose how many groups of data to color by.
d. "Fill" allows you to choose what color gradient / grouping (or solid color if not symbolizing) to symbolize with.
e. "Stroke" is border color and thickness for each map element symbology.
f. "Opacity" is how visible a map element is.
g. If line data is being modified, "size", "casing", and "offset" become visible. "Size" allows you to change the size of a line element, "casing" allows you to change the color and thickness of a line element's casing (or border), and "offset" allows you to change how offset a casing is from a line element.
3. Loading data into your map
a. To the right of layers panel, you will see a plus button. Click that to open the "Add Layer" window.
b. In the "Add Layer" window, you can select from all available datasets accessible via the Data Manager.
c. Click on any dataset of your liking. Make sure to select the proper dataset version. Click "Add Layer" at the bottom of the window.
d. Once added, it will show up as a layer on the layers panel.
e. Using the steps gone through in section 2a, you can modify any layer to fit your needs.
4. Modifying a map to your needs
Maps can be modified within the Map Editor in many different ways to fit your needs. Here are a few examples of the different modifications that can be made.
a. Using the Dairy Cow Inventory map as an example, we can modify line data with the fill, size, and offset tools, as went over in sections 2B1D and 2B1G.
1. As shown in the image below, the State Freight Core Rail Network data is modified with the use of the size tool.
b. For modifying geometric (vector) data, we can modify the data with all the tools gone over in section 2B1A through 2B1F.
1. As show in the image below, the Dairy Cow Inventory by County data is modified with the use of the fill tool.
5. Saving and Utilizing Your Map in the Freight Atlas
a. When you are finished editing your map, you can save the map clicking the above save icon highlighted when hovering over the map title.
b. In the prompt menu here, highlight the "save" button if editing a pre-existing map, or "save-as" if you are finished creating a new map.
