Fusion Table tutorial working with discarded syringes 1) To

Fusion Table tutorial working with discarded syringes
1) To download the Ottawa wards KML file right click on the
link and use the “save as” option.
2) Download the SyringeCountByWard file
3) Upload both files into Fusion Tables and activate the “Map
of geometry” tab, which will provide you with the image
below.
4)
5) Activate the “Rows1” tab at the top of the screen, which
will to take you back to the tabular format you see below.
6)
7) Go to the “File” section of the menu and select the
“Merge” option.
8) Then select the “SyringeCountByWard” file that we’ve
already downloaded and stored on our Google Drive.
9)
10)
Select the “Next” tab. We will join the field from both
tables that contain the same values. In this case, it is the
ward numbers. Select the “WARD_NUM” in “This Table”
(which is the Wards file) and the “Ward” field in the
“SyringeCountByWard” table. You select the field, by
clicking on the downward arrow on each of the table tabs.
Your screen should look like this:
11)
Select the “Next” tab and import all the columns. We
can always filter out the columns we don’t want later.
Select the “Merge” tab, and view the table.
12)
13)
You can see that the two tables have been merged
with the discarded needle count in each ward. Select the
“Map of geometry” tab. You’ll notice that the map looks
the same as it did before. That’s because we must assign a
colour scheme that allows us to see which wards have the
highest number of discarded syringes and needles. To do
this, let’s go to the “Map of geometry” tab, click on the
downward arrow to the right, and select the “Change map
styles” option from the shortcut menu.
14)
We want to assign different colours to each ward or
polygon. Select the “Fill Color” option under the Polygon
section on the left-hand side of the “Change map feature
styles” dialogue box. Then select the “Buckets” menu.
15)
This is where you have to give some thought to how
you want to divide the numbers so your colour scheme
matches the distribution of syringes by ward. At this point
it helps to open your original Excel file that groups the
syringes by ward, and sort the “SyringeCount” column in
descending order. You’ll notice that most of the wards
have very few syringes and needes, compared to the two
that contain the highest concentration. It’s probably best
to manually assign a range that best corresponds to the
groupings in your pivot table. In the end, the choice is
yours. But for this exercise, why don’t we try this range: 210; 10-20; 20-50; 50-133; 133-371 (Fusion Tables should
assign a maximum value one number higher so the ward
with the highest number appears in the pivot table). Now
turning to the pivot table, let’s create five “buckets” or
categories, by selecting the radio button to the left of the
“Divide into” label, and the number “5” from the drop-
down menu.
16)
The values you want to count are contained in your
“Syringe Count” column, so select if from your drop-down
menu to the right of the “Column” label. Fusion Table will
ask you if you want to use the 2-370 range contained in
your pivot table. Click on the “use this range” option.
You’ll notice that the upper end of the range is actually
371, which will capture the entire dataset. Because we’ve
determined that there a discrepancy between the wards
with a low number of discarded needles and syringes
compared to the two with the highest concentrations,
we’ll have to make sure that our range reflects this
distribution. We can do this manually, by plugging in the
numbers in the boxes to the right of the “+” and “-“ signs.
Take a look at what I’ve done in the screenshot below.
17)
Now we have the range we want, let’s improve the
colour scheme by making each group of wards with the
ones in the darker colours representing geographic areas
with the highest concentrations of discarded needles and
syringes.
18)
Before moving on to the next colour, let’s increase
the “Opacity” to 100.
19)
Click outside the colour palette to move to the next
colour in the continuum. For each category, select a
slightly darker colour, and be sure to increase the opacity
to 100 %. Before hitting the “Save tab”, let’s give the map
a legend. Select the “Automatic legend” option from the
menu on the left-hand side, and click the box to the left of
the “Show polygon fill legend” option.
20)
Save this legend.
21)
22)
Place your cursor over the ward with the darkest
colour.
23)
24)
Rideau-Vanier comes out on top. Perhaps no surprise,
but at least we now have a visual depiction of the hot
spots for discarded needles and syringes.
25)
You’ll notice that the information in the pop-up boxes
corresponds with the fields from our merged tables. To
make the pop-up box disappear, click on the “x” to the top
right-hand side. We may not want all these fields
displayed, or we may want to change the names. To turn
off certain fields, go to the “Map of geometry” tab, and
choose the “Change info window layout” option from the
drop-down menu.
26)
The fields are listed in the “Change info window
layout” box. We may only want to name of the ward, and
the number of syringes. So let’s de-select the other boxes
and save the changes. Now the information is more
streamlined.
27)
But let’s say that we’re not happy with the labels. We
might want to change them to something else: say,
“Wards” and “Discarded needles and syringes”. To do this,
let’s go back to the “Change info window layout” option in
the “Map of geometry” tab, and go to “Custom” tab ,
which allows for more flexibility. We can change the labels
to the left of the colons.
28)
Let’s change the “name” field to “Wards” and the
“Syringe Count” field to “Discarded needles and syringes”.
Save the changes. And go back to the Rideau-Vanier ward
to see the results.
29)
Now we’ve got a heat map we can use as part of our
story about the hotspots for discarded needles and
syringes in Ottawa.
30)
Our final step is to share the link by clicking the blue
Share tab at the top right-hand side of your screen.
31)
Select the setting to the right of the “Anyone who has
the link can view” option. In the dialogue box, you’ll see a
number of “Visibility options”. Select the second one
down, “Anyone with the link”
32)
Save your settings.
33)
Now you can copy the URL and send it to your editor.
34)
To embed the map in your story, to the “Tools”
option in your menu, and then the “Publish” option.
35)
In addition to being able to email the link or embed
the code, you can also change the map’s dimensions.