Post by islington on Jul 3, 2018 16:05:07 GMT
I am sorry if this is the wrong place for this thread, or even the wrong forum for it, but I don't know whom I can ask.
I am looking for advice on the best open-source GIS software that I can download. There seems to be a huge range of options, and I'm keen to get this right because I don't want to invest time on learning to use a system only to find that it's not suitable for my purpose. My aim is to plot historic constituency boundaries, starting with the 1832 Reform Act and, I hope, working my way from there toward the present day. I intend to start with England but ultimately I want to cover the whole of the UK as it existed at the relevant time, therefore including the whole of Ireland.
I'll then download boundaries as shapefiles into it. The idea, eventually, is to produce the most accurate maps I can of UK constituencies, shown against the background of a suitable base map. This will differ from the election maps currently available on VoB in two ways.
The best example of what I'd like as my finished product, ideally, is something like this -
wikishire.co.uk/map/#/centre=56.194,-4.457/zoom=9/base=outline_detached
It shows traditional counties in all their pre-1844 glory, with detached parts flying in all directions. What particularly attracts me about this map is its granularity; it's possible to zoom in to a level showing considerable detail. A further plus is that it covers the whole of Ireland on the same basis as Great Britain. (One thing I don't like about it is the choice of base map, which to my mind provides too modern a context for material that is essentially historic. But maybe this is quibbling on my part - I'd settle for a modern base map if I had to.)
I have been looking in detail at the boundaries as they existed from 1832 until the next major reform in 1867-68 and I am confident that, at least in England and Wales, I now have a pretty clear idea of where each boundary ran (with a few exceptions where I'm still investigating). I've now reached the point where I need to map my findings, hence this request.
Can anyone help? I'm happy to accept private messages if this is likely to generate too technical a discussion for the forum.
(And please assume knowledge of virtually zero on the technological front. I'm reasonably comfortable in my knowledge of the relevant legislation and of 19th-century OS mapping, but I recognize that the computing side is going to be a painfully steep learning curve.)
I am looking for advice on the best open-source GIS software that I can download. There seems to be a huge range of options, and I'm keen to get this right because I don't want to invest time on learning to use a system only to find that it's not suitable for my purpose. My aim is to plot historic constituency boundaries, starting with the 1832 Reform Act and, I hope, working my way from there toward the present day. I intend to start with England but ultimately I want to cover the whole of the UK as it existed at the relevant time, therefore including the whole of Ireland.
I'll then download boundaries as shapefiles into it. The idea, eventually, is to produce the most accurate maps I can of UK constituencies, shown against the background of a suitable base map. This will differ from the election maps currently available on VoB in two ways.
- Its purpose will be to show the territorial extent of the constituency, not to show the outcome of elections.
- It will, I hope (and with apologies to VoB) be more detailed and a lot more accurate than the VoB maps, which are muddled and (often) downright wrong.
The best example of what I'd like as my finished product, ideally, is something like this -
wikishire.co.uk/map/#/centre=56.194,-4.457/zoom=9/base=outline_detached
It shows traditional counties in all their pre-1844 glory, with detached parts flying in all directions. What particularly attracts me about this map is its granularity; it's possible to zoom in to a level showing considerable detail. A further plus is that it covers the whole of Ireland on the same basis as Great Britain. (One thing I don't like about it is the choice of base map, which to my mind provides too modern a context for material that is essentially historic. But maybe this is quibbling on my part - I'd settle for a modern base map if I had to.)
I have been looking in detail at the boundaries as they existed from 1832 until the next major reform in 1867-68 and I am confident that, at least in England and Wales, I now have a pretty clear idea of where each boundary ran (with a few exceptions where I'm still investigating). I've now reached the point where I need to map my findings, hence this request.
Can anyone help? I'm happy to accept private messages if this is likely to generate too technical a discussion for the forum.
(And please assume knowledge of virtually zero on the technological front. I'm reasonably comfortable in my knowledge of the relevant legislation and of 19th-century OS mapping, but I recognize that the computing side is going to be a painfully steep learning curve.)