Mapping Assistance

I'm back from vacation -- had to take time out to improve my personal quality of life before I could get back to measuring other people's QOL -- and am playing with some mapping software for our local community indicators project.

In the process, I needed to simplify a 3+ MB Census-derived shapefile map of Florida counties into something a little more nimble and useful. I found this great resource in beta test -- MapShaper shapefile editor -- that allows you to upload a shapefile map and then control the level of simplicity you'd like. I got my map down to a nice 98 KB and with no noticeable resolution degradation for what I needed it for.

You will need to copy over the other files associated with your shapefile and rename them in order for your new map to work. This took a matter of seconds to do.

Anyway, if you're using maps that are too large, and need to simplify them quickly (and for free!), visit the blog at MapShaper.org to find out more.