Author: matcham2.0

Have you ever wanted an infographic about making infographics? I found this one when looking for a succinct summary of some cool new visualization types like bubble charts and word clouds and thought it was worth sharing. Infographic from Venngage available here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/thumbnails.venngage.com/template/30a6a1a8-ecae-4479-9a46-5fe23ea0d448.png The above infographic focuses on the goals of your graphic. Do you… Continue reading Choosing Chart Types →

Apparently my late-October QGIS enthusiasm was contagious! A few friends have reached out asking how to get started with QGIS or refresh their skills after a few years away. If you're a new GIS user and are fortunate enough to be affiliated with a university, try checking out a class. I've yet to find an… Continue reading QGIS 3 Tutorials →

If you're excited about maps, you have to check out the David Rumsy Map Collection. This 30 year project has amassed over 150,000 maps and has been using high-resolution scanning to digitize the collection. The digital maps are available for free non-commercial use through a Creative Common License, making this a great resource when you're… Continue reading David Rumsy Map Collection →

This semester I am investing some time in refreshing my Matlab skills. Since many readers are either new to spatial analysis entirely or learning some new software themselves, I thought it might be useful for me to highlight some of the learning tools I'm using. In 2015 or thereabouts I took a full semester course… Continue reading Linked In Learning →

I know I've been super behind on updating my QGIS software. I stuck to 2.18.19 for the last couple years because I don't like changing versions mid-project, but it's beyond time now. A stable release of QGIS 3 has been available since 2018, and I moved to version 3.8 a few weeks ago. The difference… Continue reading QGIS 3 Software Update →

I've covered lots of different topics in the year+ that Spatially Challenged has been around. In order to make it a little more reader-friendly, I do keep an organized list of GIS-related blog posts on a static page. Just click the GIS button on the main menu (see below) or just click here. Not every… Continue reading Site Pages: GIS →

I've had a few friends reach out to me this fall asking about how I prepared for my MS defense. I won't say I'm an expert on this (my defense was quite rough), but I did pass. Below are some resources that helped me feel prepared. Most of my last semester was very focused on… Continue reading Preparing for Your Defense →

Every now and again someone asks me about "that little checkbox at the bottom of QGIS." Look at the picture below to see what they're talking about. The Render box is checked by default in QGIS. When it is checked, all active layers in you map will be rendered, or created, every time you pan… Continue reading Render Checkbox in QGIS →