Flow Mapping

Getting a head start on a new project that is more cartographic. It will involve mapping migration/flows from Australia to the Northern Territory (probably smaller geographic units than states). I like making maps, and so I'm excited to do some cartography beyond standard ArcGIS layouts. There are different possibilities on how to map this. Initially, I think I will use something like this that creates a more trunk/branch flow map instead of the typical straight line between places (Tobler's Flowmapper). The project lead doesn't like this style too much, but thought the trunk/branch style might work. We might pursue other mapping techniques, which would be cool to try and apply different map techniques to this area...

The Flow Map Layout tool that comes with the article is actually pretty slick, at least when using the supplied examples. Instructions are lacking unfortunately, so I'm not sure how to use multiple root points. The output is nice, and allows for export to an eps file. That could be brought into Adobe Illustrator and edited. Ad ambitious as I can be, I'm thinking of creating something similar for ArcGIS but using a shapefile. This would give a lot of control over the final product. In their tool, you can move things around too...Anyway, there are limits and I'm a control freak.

Camel project finished up as much as that type of project can finish. It's one of those projects that you can keep adding to and making it more sophisticated. It was part of a larger part, but it sounds like this will also be produced as a separate GIS/Model report. See how that goes. It was an interesting and fun project to work on. Good people too.