3D Maps and ESRI Case Studies

When I took the virtual tour and watched the videos on the Placeways website I was very impressed with the technology and software they have created to incorporate 3D maps into GIS. ESRI already had forms of three dimensional maps in their software but nothing of this caliber. The ability to have geographic data in 3D images similar to that available in 2D maps is great.

When I was exploring the ESRI website and their case studies, one that sparked my interest was an article about sustainable development and GIS called "Formulating A Sustainable Development Land Use Scenario Using GIS." This article explained how by using ArcGIS, they were able to estimate what the land use for Hervey Bay would be in the year 2021. In the article they had two maps, each showing what the bay area would look like if there were no sustainable development tools used and what it would look like if they were implemented.

This map shows Hervey Bay without sustainable tools:


This one depicts the area if sustainable development tools were used:


The ability to predict what an area will look like in the future based on different development tools will allow a city planner or regional planner to make more informed decisions about what would be best for the community based on the master plan.

Social Explorer Review

After playing with the social explorer website for a good amount of time, I found that the free version does not offer a wide range of available information. If the map creator just needs a simple map on population or religion, the free version is perfect for this. For example, I thought I would look at the race in my area in the 1790s census tract as compared to the 2000 census tract. The results were not very surprising based on the history of my surrounding towns.

1790 Census Tract
2000 Census Tract

Taking into consideration that this is only a trial version and the purpose is to get consumers to purchase the full version, it may be able to help some people create simple maps. I personally would much rather just use ArcMap to create maps since I have spent several semesters using the software and am very comfortable with the procedures.