Geospatial Data Visualization: Reference

Visualizing data augments human cognition and, if done right, can lead to richer understanding of the available data.

Cartographic visualizations (maps) can draw significant insights from spatial data.

Data visualization is a tool to assist several steps of the researcher’s pipeline, from initial data exploration to communication of final results.

Map projections are interesting, complicated, and mostly handled for us.

Choosing a projection appropriately to match the intent of the visualization is critical to accurately conveying information (“how much distortion is OK?”).

Cartopy can easily manage projections.

A few simple modifications to matplotlib code (namely the projection keyword) can turn any matplotlib plot into a spatially-aware one.