In [1], an excellent tutorial is presented about the process of making maps. It is a little bit dated, so here I develop some Windows-based scripts that make it possible to follow these tutorials. The goal is two-fold:
- Make things work for Windows. I am comfortable with the Unix command line, but, by far, most of my colleagues are not. To allow for easier sharing, I used Windows CMD.
- Update the commands so they all function again. Some URLs have changed a little bit, and we need to use a specific version of d3. If you want to use the original Unix commands, and you encounter some issues, you may want to check how I repaired them.
The output format of these scripts is svg. SVG files are plain text, represent vectors (instead of bitmaps), and can be read directly by a standard web browser.
Part 1
The first thing to do is to install node.js if you don't have this available already. Using [2] this process is quite straightforward. Our first batch file will follow the steps in [1].
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 | ::--------------------------------------------------------------------------- :: :: Mike Bostock :: Command-Line Cartography, Part 1 :: A tour of d3-geo’s new command-line interface. :: :: https://medium.com/@mbostock/command-line-cartography-part-1-897aa8f8ca2c :: :: Needs node.js. Install from: https://nodejs.org/en/download/ :: :: we translate UNIX command line to Windows CMD ::--------------------------------------------------------------------------- :: download shape file from Census Bureau (region 06 = California) :: :: curl 'http://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/GENZ2014/shp/cb_2014_06_tract_500k.zip' -o cb_2014_06_tract_500k.zip :: use https instead, curl is part of windows curl -O https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/GENZ2014/shp/cb_2014_06_tract_500k.zip :: unzip -o cb_2014_06_tract_500k.zip :: use tar instead (part of windows) tar -xf cb_2014_06_tract_500k.zip :: install node.js package :: and extract geojson call npm install -g shapefile call shp2json cb_2014_06_tract_500k.shp -o ca.json :: perform projection call npm install -g d3-geo-projection call geoproject "d3.geoConicEqualArea().parallels([34, 40.5]).rotate([120, 0]).fitSize([960, 960], d)" < ca.json > ca-albers.json :: create svg call geo2svg -w 960 -h 960 < ca-albers.json > ca-albers.svg :: launch browser start ca-albers.svg |
Notes:
- The curl command is available on newer versions of Windows.
- Windows does not have unzip, but it has tar which can unzip files.
- Use https instead of HTTP.
- The use of quotes is different under Windows compared to Unix.
The result should be the following vector image displayed in your browser:
