As the #30DayMapChallenge wraps up, I’ve taken time to think about my experiences during this experiment. Although I only completed some of the maps during the challenge, the maps I worked on helped stretch my skills beyond my comfort zone. I aimed to become more comfortable using R and open-source tools, and in that light, this challenge was a success.
This is the final map - shelters in Antarctica. I’ve never worked with a polar projection before and was excited to try it.
Writing code and making maps with AI I need to catch up on the #30DayMapChallenge. Next year, I will plan a bit better to stay on track. In the meantime, I will fulfill a few topics with one set of maps - AI only (Day 9) and Map Projections (Day 26). I asked Claude.ai to write an R script to make a series of world maps showing different projections.
I didn’t edit any of the code myself, but I went back and forth with Claude for about 20 minutes to refine how the maps looked.
Now that I understand the basics of getting data into and out of a DuckDB file, I want to add spatial queries to the repertoire. You can find my blog post on creating and reading DuckDB data here: Duck DB + GIS. Spatial queries are a pretty common task in GIS. For example, you might want to find all of the restaurants within 5 miles of your hotel during a vacation.
#30DayMapChallenge Day 13: A new tool. I finally took the leap and experimented with DuckDB to create and access spatial data from #rstats. #gis #duckdb mel-likes-maps.micro.blog/2024/11/1…
I’ve been wanting to try DuckDB for a while. The lure of a serverless database is strong. But it always seemed intimidating. I recently read two articles that made me think that there’s no time like the present to give it a try: DuckDB: The Indispensable Geospatial Tool You Didn’t Know You Were Missing by Chris Holmes and # PostGEESE? Introducing The DuckDB Spatial Extension by Max Gabrielsson. I am going to share what I did to get points and polygons into a DuckDB database, then use that data to make maps.
The 30 Day Map Challenge is an annual social media event to challenge your self to make more maps. I’ve never participated before because it seemed very daunting to make all of these extra maps on my off time to share with the world. Particularly because many of the categories are types of maps and analysis that I don’t do often. But, what the heck? I probably won’t be able to complete them all, but some is better than none.
Welcome to Mel Likes Maps🗺️ I’ve always loved maps. For the past 15 years, I’ve been fortunate enough to turn this into a career in data analysis and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). As you can imagine, a lot has changed, and it takes a lot of effort to keep up. The goal of this blog is to be a space where I can document and share projects I’m working on and what I’ve learned.
