11 years ago I wrote a guide to creating bivariate choropleth maps. It took Photoshop, SQL, and an eyedropper.

Now it takes minutes.

This article revisits that topic, focused on what changed, what still holds up, and how to design better colors in Phosphor.

Nearly 400 workers carved Mount Rushmore from 4 October 1927 to 31 October 1941, about 90% of it with dynamite, and not one of them died. This is the summit in the USGS 3DEP 1 m bare-earth DEM, collected 2023, shaded and tinted by elevation. The granite is the bright, cracked block in the upper middle. The road curves down the left side and the stepped seating shows up lower right. If you want contours from it, it's one tool in QGIS, Raster > Extraction > Contour (GDAL contour underneath). The interval is in the DEM's units, so 2 on a meter DEM gives 2 m contours.

1. Mount Rushmore's carved granite summit in bare-earth lidar
2. Same view as plain hillshade with elevation tint
3. Air photo of the same area, July 2022

Numbered pins on picture 1:
Pin 1: Dark joint cracking bare granite
Pin 2: The road curving down the side

Lidar: USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP), public domain.
Imagery: USGS The National Map (NAIP Imagery service), 2022, Public domain.

Hello everyone, I recently saw a job listing where the company states that they do their GIS work for mapping their infrastructure using Geomedia/Intergraph. I pretty much don't know anything about these but I did some research and found out it was a main GIS software used a couple of decades ago, but it seems that its relevance has now diminished. I am rather sceptical about the fact that the company uses this exact software and hasn't migrated to other more modern GIS tools. So does anyone here still work with Geomedia and what do you think of it? What is Geomedia's reputation nowadays?

I graduated in August with my bachelors in GIS. I’m regretting my degree at this point because I can’t land a job. Every listing is looking for people with 3+ yrs experience in something I don’t have experience in yet. I still apply to them on the off chance I get an interview.

A little background on me, I was a geospatial intelligence analyst in the Army for 6 years. When I got out I pursued my degree in GIS. I liked the mapping and analyzing of my job in the Army, but I wanted to apply those skills to improve infrastructure or track environmental concerns, etc.. Problem is I don’t have direct experience in analyzing those passions outside of school. So my “experience” is not considered real experience to hiring staff. I’ve been told that at the end of two separate interviews.

I’ve thought about going back into intel for the ease of it but that’s not really possible where I am either. All the intel positions are senior positions. And I can’t move because my spouse is still active duty military. I’ve even applied to remote jobs, as expected I haven’t heard back from any of those.

I’m lost on what to do. I feel stuck!

Hello everyone!

I have a requirement for Experience Builder that I’m not sure is feasible. I have a web map with several layers, one of which is a polygon layer where each polygon contains data such as population, number of households, number of workers, and other information. I’ve set up an Experience Builder project that allows users to draw polygons in a separate, empty layer; these drawn polygons then select the features from the first layer (the one containing the population data), and the corresponding information is displayed in text panels on the side. That covers half of what I need.

Is there a way to export the map view—showing the selected areas along with the chosen data—to a PDF, without having that information appear in the side panels? In other words, can I draw a polygon, use it to select the features contained within it, and then export a PDF report? Is this possible in Experience Builder?

Thanks!

[GIS Experience] 7 years

[AI Disclosure] AI was not used in this project

I have been using QGIS for over 10 years, and there are several features that could improve the work workflow.

Hi everyone,

[AI Disclosure] I do not use any AI, nor am I interested in doing so.

[GIS Experience] I have been working as a GIS analyst for a municipality for about 6 months now. This is my first job out of college, so I am very new to the field still.

I am looking for some advice or project ideas from other people who have worked with or for municipalities. I want to be able to do some cool projects that would benefit the town and get people more interested in the GIS we have! Any ideas, advice, conversations, etc. would be greatly appreciated!

For some context: The town I work for has about 20k people and is pretty wealthy and residential. We have a lot of forests and water bodies.

我做了一個一個地圖，但是我用QGIS圖像化時卻做不到把它用最精細的方式圖像化，有人能幫助我嗎?

Hi everyone! I’m building a commercial Leaflet web app where paying clients can view satellite imagery with my own infrastructure layers on top.

I need decent imagery for ~186 km² in Africa. It’s behind a login, initially for one client, with very little traffic and no imagery downloads.

I’m looking for a licence that explicitly allows displaying the imagery to external clients in a paid app. I’m happy to pay, but Mapbox’s five-figure annual minimum is beyond my budget, and other providers seem to restrict this use.

Has anyone found an affordable option? Any providers or licensing experiences you’d recommend?

Thanks!

I was reading that the fires in Indonesia (that's causing all the toxic haze across SEA) is caused by peat fires from the conversion of rainforest and peatland into agricultural land. And that over there they dig these straight canals through the rainforest and peat to dry out the land so they can use slash and burn tactics to make the land usable for big business. So I was looking at Google Maps for evidence of this. I don't have much GIS experience so I was wondering if anyone else had ideas on how to verify if what I'm seeing on Google Maps is what I think it is.

Located here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/RtBwXuUijr7xQZSe8

Hi GIS Community,

I am using Experience Builder (not the Developer version) in our Enterprise Portal and am at my wits end with what I feel is the poor layout functionality.

I have some map tools turned on and I want to add additional widgets to the map area using a widget controller. I want these widgets to line up with the map tool widgets and to continue to line up regardless of screen size. I want perfect alignment between the widget controller and the map's built in widget buttons. I can't for the life of my figure out how to achieve this goal. I really don't feel like this is too much to ask for. I've tried searching for solutions and I've tried using the ESRI AI Chatbot, to no avail.

I've attached a picture that shows the misalignment between widget buttons.

I would greatly appreciate any advice or commiseration on this topics. Thank you!!

Also, I have 5 years of GIS experience.

AI Disclosure: just tried to use the ESRI Chatbot, it did not help.

I have a consultancy but I am trying to grow my clientele instead of small one off jobs. I wonder if anyone here has scaled their own consultancy in this Reddit before. I’m curious if pursuing more private clients is the best way, if so, how did find the contract or create the lead? If it’s public sector, were you partnering with larger firms. Any advice would be great!

I’m a second year college student. I just went back to school last year after a few years of thinking about what I want to study. I decided on Geography with Data Science, which is the more technical track within the geography department at the school I’ll be transferring to. They have a more straightforward GIS track but this one adds coding and data science to the degree requirements.

I just started Intro to Mapping and GIS. I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time and had to transfer to a different community college to be able to take this course and I’m sad to say that I’m not enjoying it so far. I’ve never been much of a tech guy but I really like geography and wanted to get a more technical degree so I could be more hireable. I’ve also stalked this sub for a few years and thought I would be better off with the data science option over the more straightforward GIS track given the state of the entry level job market.

I’m curious if any of you didn‘t enjoy GIS at first but grew to like it over time. I hope that as I get more comfortable with the software(ArcGIS) I‘ll learn to like it but I’m wondering if maybe this just isn’t for me. I’m applying to universities after this semester and would like to know if I should pivot so I can apply to other programs.

Update: I just wanted to say thank you to you all for your responses. They’ve been really constructive and encouraging and I greatly appreciate it.

I worked briefly on mapping with a company in marine consultancy. I have a degree in social geography and MSc in remote sensing and GIS. I am more data and maps and want to work with a wider array of projects but spatial planning is new and i have limited experience with building projects and infrastructure, regulations. Im brand new. How do inget through this interview!! I really need work. Im nose diving into debt right now.

With us, you will work with, among other things:

• The planning process from idea to final decision.​

• Projects within transportation and infrastructure, urban and rural development, industry and projects within the green shift and construction and property development​

• Preparation of area plans and zoning plans​

• Planning process management and project work​

• Impact assessments and planning analyses​

• Feasibility studies and development concepts​

• Participation and citizen involvement processes​

• GIS analyses and map production​

• Illustrations and presentation material​

• Tender work and project management

Gis experience: 3 years

Ai disclosure: none that I'm aware. Maybe the job post is originally

So I have GIS certification and 5+ years of experience through my military enlistment and was able to get a defense contracting job in D.C. However, I quickly learned that I both hated D.C and defense contracting lol, is there a better way to leverage my military certification and experience to get a job outside of the DOD or at least the DMV?

I’ve been applying but I have a pretty good idea that recruiters aren’t even paying mind to me without my bachelors (I’m currently enrolled in college). Is there anyone who’s dealt with this?

Any advice would help.

AI Disclosure: I am using AI to assist in the coding of this application.

GISMap.online/examples is a resource on GISMap showing how to turn a public ArcGIS FeatureServer service into an interactive, seven-slide briefing that can be shared by URL or QR code.

There are a ton of example datasets in there, but this example is focusing on a new type: maps that are generated using a chatbot or AI Agent.

Here is one that shows how it can be used as a Powerpoint like tool in Briefing mode.

https://gismap.online/examples/ai/mlb-ballparks-by-state/

This section explains how you can use a chatbot to generate the Briefing, but you can also just generate it yourself using a feature service. It's fun - especially if you the Instant presentations to pick a fun Skin. Try Highway or Pacific '94, or go crazy with Velvet Orbit.

I have 20 years of GIS experience, including lots of Python coding and Javascript coding. I am now experimenting with AI assisted coding, but geospatial is where my heart is.

[GIS Experience] GIS Developer and Software Engineer with 20 years of experience.

[AI Disclosure] AI was used for brainstorming architecture and copy-editing the post description.

Hey everyone,

Wanted to share a project I've been hacking on recently called TectonicPlateMap.org.

I've always been fascinated by geodynamics, but a lot of the existing plate tectonic tools feel clunky or locked behind heavy desktop software. I wanted something snappy and modern that runs completely in the browser.

Under the hood, it’s built with MapLibre GL JS for fast vector rendering. The core dataset ingests all 52 lithospheric plates from Peter Bird’s PB2002 model, including things like spherical equal-area measurements and NNR drift velocity vectors.

I also hooked up live USGS earthquake feeds and Holocene volcano telemetry from the Smithsonian GVP so you can see active seismic and volcanic zones right over the plates. Added a few extra layers too, like subduction trenches, impact craters, and an offline vector basemap mode.

Everything is client-side and open-source. If you're into GIS or earth science, I'd love for you to check it out and let me know how the vector rendering performance feels on your end, or if there's any other geophysical data you think would be cool to add!

https://tectonicplatemap.org/

Has anyone had experience do side jobs in GIS? If so how did you find that work?

I've noticed that there can be friction between IT and GIS, especially since GIS is so tech-focused that it encourages users to build and automate. How do you navigate with your IT department so that you can build software without too much oversight but also without inadvertently creating a shadow IT?

I myself actually sit in my company's IT department. We are a team of developers focused entirely on supporting Enterprise GIS. We work well with our GIS department since most of us have GIS backgrounds ourselves.

I manage GIS for a large urban park and I’m building a path asset layer for a work order system. What I have is not great:

• A CAD base map from our design team, converted to GIS. Paths are drawn as edge lines only :C : two lines per path (one per side), no centerline, no attributes, and the lines don’t close at junctions. About 63 miles of asphalt edge linework.
• A trails layer with centerlines, but it only covers about 40% of the paved paths.
• The city’s planimetric database has “interior sidewalk” polygons for the park, traced from aerials. They cover the paths well but carry no surface type and are one big polygon per connected network.

What I'm Trying to do: one polygon per stretch of path, cut into roughly 100 ft segments, each with a name, width, and area.

What I’ve tried in ArcGIS Pro with arcpy so far:

1. Feature To Polygon on the edge lines. This blew up in my face because there are trailing lines and then everything got included (lawns, roads, other path parts that are just close enough)
2. Buffer out / buffer back (fatten each edge by 10 ft, merge, shrink by 10 ft) to fill the gap between paired edges. Works on clean two-edge paths, but fragments into scraps at junctions, misses anything wider than 20 ft, and leaves stubs with no partner edge empty.
3. Using the city polygons as the shape, cutting them crosswise with perpendicular lines generated along my named edge lines, then naming each piece from the edge with the most length along its boundary. This has been my best try yet but I'm definitely seeing differences in the way things are shaped beyond simple projection issues.

Two things I’d like opinions on:

1) How do people decide which source is the edge of record when neither is survey grade? Is there a standard way to express that as a per-feature confidence score?

2) Is there a reliable, licence-friendly way to derive a centerline from paired edge lines that don’t close at junctions? Polygon To Centerline needs Production Mapping, which we don’t have. I’ve seen Voronoi/skeleton approaches mentioned; has anyone used one on messy CAD linework at this scale?

Any pointers to workflows, tools, or papers appreciated. I'll owe you my first child (or free reddit karma) for any advice or directions. Please helppp