The TIGER System: Yesterday,Today, and Tomorrow

The TIGER System is many things to many people. At this juncture, the TIGER System has fulfilled the precensus geographic support functions for which the Geography Division designed it. During the next 18 months, the TIGER System will support a number of functions needed to complete the tabulation of the collected data and make those data useful to the numerous constituencies that carry out the myriad tasks that define our lives. Simultaneously with the use of the TIGER System to support the data tabulation and dissemination missions of the Census Bureau, work will be under way to define a framework for the future of this bold new product – and this future looks bright. If the TIGER System is to be judged truly useful outside the Census Bureau, similar planning will need to be going on in offices and institutions across America. This is true especially in the context of geographic information system (GIS) applications involving the digital products of the TIGER System and the demographic data products of the 1990 census.     

Data visualization at the US census bureau – an American tradition

Recent developments in data visualization, developer Application Program Interfaces (APIs), and web services reinforce a long American tradition of statistical mapping and innovation at the US Census Bureau. Consistent with other international statistical agencies, the Census Bureau has used contemporary innovations in statistical mapping and data visualization to disseminate national census results for over 14 decades. The US Census Bureau’s data products and analyses have enabled decision makers and the public to access census results quickly and easily. The new information technology environment requires the Census Bureau to more rapidly expedite these results and deliver mapping products to new customers as well as to its traditional data consumers. The Census API has empowered developers and commercial companies to test the limits of a new emerging world of big data solutions. This article presents some of the most recent data visualization products from the Census Bureau, including an expanding Data Visualization Gallery to merge geospatial information and statistics on the map.     

TIGER/SDTS: Standardizing an Innovation

The explosion of computer processing capabilities for manipulating geographic data has produced a concomitant increase in the number of geographic data file formats available. The many formats make it difficult to exchange and manipulate geographic data from several sources, and sometimes even from the same source. The U.S. Bureau of the Census has been a contributor to the “Yet Another Geographic File Format” movement over the past two decades with its Address Coding Guides (following the 1970 decennial census), the GBF/DIME-Files (following the 1980 decennial census), and four different versions of its TIGER/Line files at various times during the 1990 decennial census cycle. The TIGER data base is a massive computer file that provides geographic information about the entire United States and its territories in great detail, down to the individual city block and its component boundary features. Its value to more than Census Bureau activities is enormous. To enhance the value of the TIGER data base, and to make it easier to use, the Census Bureau is releasing the file in the new Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) format. The benefits of a standard transfer format are manifold. This paper discusses some of the intergovernmental activities that were required before the exchange standard was adopted and some of the problems of implementing the standard within the Census Bureau. The Census Bureau is not alone in its decision to release geographic data files in the SDTS format, and some of the benefits of using the standard for exchanging data among agencies also are described.     

Reflections on Mapping Census 2000

Mapping Census 2000: The Geography of U.S. Diversity is an atlas containing 75 maps and presenting county- and state-level data for Census 2000. Cynthia Brewer and Trudy Suchan rapidly produced the atlas in the Population Division of the U.S. Census Bureau using ArcInfo 8.1 prerelease software. Redistricting data, on which the atlas was based, were released in March 2001 and the full-color atlas went to press in July 2001. It is the first decennial atlas produced by the Census Bureau in 80 years. Race maps in the atlas are designed to present the new Census 2000 data that include counts of people who indicated more than one race. Choropleth classifications are constructed to facilitate comparison among maps in series for all race/ethnicity groups, both large and small. Map series share breaks that are adjusted to include meaningful breaks based on overall U.S. percentages for individual groups. Additional shared meaningful breaks, such as "no change" and "50 percent of the population" also anchor classifications. Maps of prevalent groups and diversity provide syntheses of race/ethnicity data. Maps were evaluated at numerous levels in the Census Bureau, with issues from topic selection to page layout to title wording debated by many people. The essay describes the production processes, agency standards, and cartographic principles that come together to present these new data in an atlas that is a colorful showpiece.     

Establishing Classification and Hierarchy in Populated Place Labeling for Multiscale Mapping for The National Map

Current standards for federal mapping call for use of the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) point layer for placement of United States populated place labels. However, this point layer contains limited classification information and hierarchy information, resulting in problems of map quality for database-driven, multi-scale, reference mapping, such as maps served by The National Map Viewer from USGS. Database-driven mapping often relies simply on what labels fit best in the map frame. Our research investigates alternative sources for labeling populated places, including polygons defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, such as incorporated place, census designated place (CDP), and economic place. Within each of these polygon layers we investigate relevant attributes from the decennial and economic censuses, such as population for incorporated places and CDPs, and the number of employees for economic places. The data selected are available for the entire country to serve national mapping requirements. This combination of data allows a more refined classification of populated places on maps that better represents relative importance. Visual importance on maps through scale should derive from more than simply residential population, but also economic importance, though comparison is made to this simpler case. We differentiate a fourth category of GNIS populated place points, essentially “neighborhoods” and related features—which are not incorporated places, CDPs, nor economic places. Populated places in this fourth class do not have federally defined boundaries, necessitating an alternative method for determining hierarchy in label presentation through scale.     

TIGER/SDTS Topology

The Census Bureau is committed to using the Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) and is developing an extract from the Census TIGER? called the TIGER/SDTS?. A single file of the prototype TIGER/SDTS is now available with which interested data users may experiment. This paper will graphically describe some of the SDTS concepts and census geographic concepts used in the TIGER/SDTS. The Census TIGER? and the TIGER/SDTS? are trademarks of the Bureau of the Census.     

U.S. Census Bureau Geographic Support: A Response to Changing Technology and Improved Data

The TIGER system was developed by the Geography Division of the U.S. Census Bureau to support agency censuses and surveys. The system has been crucial to meeting the demands placed on the U.S. Census Bureau. It has been widely used by the public for a large and diverse number of uses. As public uses evolved, demands evolved. In parallel, technology and spatial data collection evolved. TIGER should now support a larger purpose. This article discusses some developments of the TIGER system and presents some of the key components of TIGER modernization: improvement of positional accuracy, connection to the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), and improved geographic analysis.     

An Automated Method of Scale Selection and Sheet Configuration for Multiple Sheet Census Maps with Insets

In order to create a useful map, the cartographer must select a scale at which the map reader can distinguish features shown on the map and read their labels. However, the choice of scale for a paper map is also constrained by the size of the map sheet and by the cost of working with a large number of sheets. When the feature density pattern allows, space can be conserved by making the map at more than one scale: a small scale suitable for most of the map, while dense features are shown on inset maps at larger scales. Creating inset maps requires the cartographer to make a series of complex, interrelated decisions regarding the most effective overall sheet configuration, which is dependent upon the scale chosen for the main map and how the inset maps are created. The Census Automated Map Production System (CAMPS) applies cartographic logic and density analysis to make these decisions in a fully automated mapping environment.     

A digital map of Public-Use Microdata Areas in the 1990 U.S. census

"Public-Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs) are the smallest geographic units for which many U.S. Census variables are reported. In particular, 1990 microdata records for households and individuals can be aggregated only by PUMA, metropolitan area, state, and region. The Census Bureau distributes maps of these PUMAs only on paper, however, and only for individual states. This note describes the construction of a national, digital base map of the PUMAs used in the 1990 U.S. Census microdata files (5% sample)."     

基于遥感的地理国情普查数据采集研究

辽宁省全国第一次地理国情普查的基础是地表覆盖和地理国情要素的采集工作,同时也是开展统计分析的前提。本文以辽宁省朝阳市基于遥感影像的地理国情数据采集工作为例,对地理国情普查中地表覆盖数据和地理国情要素的内容及指标进行数据采集研究。采集的基础指标包括范围、位置、属性、面积等,利用清华山维EPS2010软件进行数据采集、数据建库、数据检查和时点更新等工作。详细阐述了在辽宁省朝阳市地理国情普查中的工作流程,总结出一套稳定、高效、可靠、因地制宜的数据采集方法,为开展常态化地理国(省)情监测奠定基础。     

数字城市地理空间框架城乡规划管理信息系统的设计与应用研究

本文研究在数字城市地理空间框架相关成果的基础上,通过共享地理信息公共平台基础地理数据,提出城乡规划一张图数据库组织结构及建设标准,在共享联合的基础上实现规划项目管理信息化、规划业务审批电子化、规划决策管理一体化的建设思路与方法,并以数字黄冈地理空间框架城乡规划管理信息系统建设为示范进行系统实践应用,替代有纯文本的办公环境,以一体化的数据管理方式为规划审批与决策提供信息化手段与支持。     

The Development of Analytical Cartography: A Personal Note

Creating dot maps to show changes in racial and Hispanic population distributions between two census periods can be an effective way to examine one of the most important dimensions of change within any metropolitan area. Using dots of one color to show population increase and dots of a second color to show population decrease vividly reveals where changes have occurred within a larger total population. We prepared such maps for the book Changing Faces, Changing Places: Mapping Southern Californians, the text of which analyzes and interprets the population shifts evident on the maps. The maps show the expansion and contraction of racial and Hispanic populations in specific neighborhoods so that community leaders and residents alike can easily relate general trends to their localities. In this article we describe the preparation of these dot maps and explain major problems encountered in linking the 1990 and 2000 census population counts at the tract level. We explain our solutions, which we believe made possible more accurate mapping of neighborhood change.     

A Snake-based Approach for TIGER Road Data Conflation

The TIGER (Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing) system has served the U.S. Census Bureau and other agencies' geographic needs successfully for two decades. Poor positional accuracy has however made it extremely difficult to integrate TIGER with advanced technologies and data sources such as GPS, high resolution imagery, and state/local GIS data. In this paper, a potential solution for conflation of TIGER road centerline data with other geospatial data is presented. The first two steps of the approach (feature matching and map alignment) remain the same as in traditional conflation. Following these steps, a third is added in which active contour models (snakes) are used to automatically move the vertices of TIGER roads to high-accuracy roads, rather than transferring attributes between the two datasets. This approach has benefits over traditional conflation methodology. It overcomes the problem of splitting vector road line segments, and it can be extended for vector imagery conflation as well. Thus, a variety of data sources (GIS, GPS, and Remote Sensing) could be used to improve TIGER data. Preliminary test results indicate that the three-step approach proposed in this paper performs very well. The positional accuracy of TIGER road centerline can be improved from an original 100 plus meters' RMS error to only 3 meters. Such an improvement can make TIGER data more useful for much broader application.     

Access to Geospatial Data in 2003: A Global Survey of Public Policy and Technological Factors

Access to global geospatial data, and the way these data are being used, has changed dramatically in the past decade. This is true for a variety of reasons, many of them not readily apparent. This article will explore some of the essential changes in this sphere since the early 1990s, as seen from the perspective of a commercial distributor and service bureau involved with international maps and related data.     

Bicomponent Trend Maps: A Multivariate Approach to Visualizing Geographic Time Series

The most straightforward approaches to temporal mapping cannot effectively illustrate all potentially significant aspects of spatio-temporal patterns across many regions and times. This paper introduces an alternative approach, bicomponent trend mapping, which employs a combination of principal component analysis and bivariate choropleth mapping to illustrate two distinct dimensions of long-term trend variations. The approach also employs a bicomponent trend matrix, a graphic that illustrates an array of typical trend types corresponding to different combinations of scores on two principal components. This matrix is useful not only as a legend for bicomponent trend maps but also as a general means of visualizing principal components. To demonstrate and assess the new approach, the paper focuses on the task of illustrating population trends from 1950 to 2000 in census tracts throughout major U.S. urban cores. In a single static display, bicomponent trend mapping is not able to depict as wide a variety of trend properties as some other multivariate mapping approaches, but it can make relationships among trend classes easier to interpret, and it offers some unique flexibility in classification that could be particularly useful in an interactive data exploration environment.     

地理空间信息资源共享服务的应用

针对目前大众对地理空间信息的共享需求,结合实际情况,利用网络技术、Web GIS等技术,构建符合信息化建设要求、功能完整、方便实用的地理空间信息资源共享服务系统.该系统能够对来自各相关部门的信息数据进行统一管理维护、并向用户提供电子地图、信息图层、地图图片、目录服务等多项数据共享服务,实现管理和决策支持的网络化运行;完成与各种共享服务平台对接,为应用系统的开发提供数据来源,使整个系统在切实安全保障体系下运行。     

Preparing The National Map for the 3D Elevation Program – products,process and research

The 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) is a collaborative effort among government entities, academia, and the private sector to collect high-resolution 3-dimensional data over the United States. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is making preparations for managing, processing, and delivering petabytes of 3DEP elevation products for the Nation. In addition to the existing 1/3, 1, and 2 arc-second seamless elevation data layers of The National Map, new 3DEP products include lidar point cloud data; a standard 1-meter DEM layer; additional source datasets; and, in Alaska, 5-meter digital elevation models. A new product generation system improves the construction and publication of the seamless elevation datasets, prepares the additional 3DEP products for distribution, and automates the data management functions required to accommodate the high-volume 3DEP data collection. Major changes in geospatial data acquisition, such as high resolution lidar data, volunteered geographic information, data processing using parallel and grid computer systems, and user needs for semantic access to geospatial data and products, are driving USGS research associated with the 3DEP. To address the research requirements, a set of inter-related projects including spatiotemporal data models, data integration, geospatial semantics and ontology, high performance computing, multi-scale representation, and hydrological modeling using lidar and other 3DEP data has been developed.     

无锡市水利普查成果展示系统的设计与实现

全国第一次水利普查完成数据成果汇总后,成果展示及开发应用相即展开。无锡市水利局结合自身工作及管理需要,构建了完善且适合本地需要的水利空间成果库和属性库,以地理信息技术为支撑,实现了无锡市水利普查成果"一张图"展示。无锡市水利普查成果展示系统建设以水利管理部门需求为依托,分析各项管理工作对地理信息系统提出的功能需求,系统实现对无锡市河湖水系、水利设施等进行定位、搜索、属性信息存取与分析处理等。使水利普查成果成为动态服务地图,既方便使用者查看,也便于分析水利要素周围情况及合理性,同时为水利管理工作人员规划决策提供依据。本系统将无锡市水利普查成果应用到实际工作中,为无锡市水利信息化服务,使水利普查成果为民所用。     

“You know you can do this,right?”: developing geospatial technological pedagogical content knowledge and enhancing teachers’ cartographic practices with socio-environmental science investigations

Many barriers exist to K–12 classroom teachers’ adoption and implementation of geospatial technologies with their students. To address this circumstance, we have developed and implemented a geospatial curriculum approach to promote teachers’ professional growth with curriculum-linked professional development (PD) to support the adoption of socio-environmental science investigations (SESI) in an urban school environment that includes reluctant learners. SESI focus on social issues related to environmental science. The pedagogy is inquiry-driven, with students engaged in map-based mobile data collection and subsequent analysis with Web-based dynamic mapping software to answer open-ended questions. Working with four science and social studies teachers, we designed and implemented a sequence of three locally oriented, geospatial inquiry projects that were implemented with 140 9th grade students. We investigated how the geospatial curriculum approach impacted the teachers’ geospatial pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), their cartographic practices, and promoted geospatial thinking and analysis skills with their students. Findings revealed strong growth in teachers’ geospatial PCK, increased map use by teachers, use of maps as media for inquiry and not didactic instruction, and modeling to guide students’ geospatial analysis using GIS. Implications for PD to promote teachers’ geospatial PCK and in-class cartographic practices are discussed.     

Representation and its Relationship with Cartographic Visualization

A research agenda is presented which addresses the current role and potential of map displays. By considering the geospatial data used in visualization, the form and design of maps, the purposes for which map displays are created, the nature of the map user community, and the technology employed to visualize geospatial data, a thorough overview of the nature of cartographic visualization is given. Under the same themes, and sourced in cartographic tradition, cartographic practice and technological opportunities, a series of possible research avenues are highlighted. The important links between representation and the user interface, map user cognition and the geospatial database are stressed.