Author Archives: Alistair Leak

Pivot Tables for R: Try sqldf

Pivot tables are a a growing staple for analysis in excel yet they remain limited to the functionality which Microsoft has chosen to include. Typical operations are the inclusion of filters, choice over rows, columns, and maths operations. In R … Continue reading

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A New ‘SECReT’ Era Begins..

Okay so its been a while since the last post and as you can imagine a lot has changed. Starting with the major updates, I have now completed my Masters of Research qualification at UCL’s CASA and am on the verge  of … Continue reading

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Building 3D Cartogram Globes

  When we consider traditional cartograms, often our first thoughts are towards maps of poverty or wealth. Furthermore, we very expect to see a vector or raster based representation rather than a real world image. This post explored two aspects … Continue reading

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Thoughts from Geo-12 (day2)

As the title suggests, I was only able to attend the second day of this years Geo-12 event. However, the talks I did see where of excellent standard and I will hopefully communicate some of the key ideas here. The … Continue reading

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Book review: The map that changed the world

The map that changed the world written by Simon Winchester is a fascinating example of the early 1800 period where map making was in its element. The book follows the life of William Smith the son of a blacksmith who may be considered … Continue reading

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Book review: Just My Type

Just My Type, written by Simon Garfield published September 2011. When you first see this book the sleeve is enough to make you pick it up. Targeted at the novice level, the book draws the reader into the world of type working through its … Continue reading

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Visualising bike flow data in Processing

The visualisation of flows has been approached in many different ways through the history of cartography and mapping with early examples such as the British Coal export Map by Charles Minard. For this post I will be looking at the … Continue reading

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Book review: Map Of A Nation: A Biography Of The Ordnance Survey

Map Of A Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance survey by Rachel Hewitt is a excellent historical account of the history or the ordnance survey. Hewitt works well to fully document the various people and actions which in combination created one of … Continue reading

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Google Sketchup to Lumion

Now in its second decade, Google SketchUp has certainly come of age. In a past post I looked at importing SketchUp models into ESRIs ArcGIS  and now a look at working with Lumion 2. This demo is looking at an indoor scene aiming … Continue reading

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Visualising twitter point data in Processing

Processing is an open-source graphic, animation and interaction generating applications which allows a code based environment for development. The example displayed in the video below visualises tweets around London and allows the user to navigate and interrogate the data. As … Continue reading

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