MapFilter

October 28, 2008 8:13 PM

Where can I find a freeware or shareware download for Mac OS X that will allow me to plug in numerical data (e.g., public library funding in a given year) for each U.S. State and get a map of the USA that displays color-coded states? Like the infamous red / blue states map, which also has county breakdowns.

I've tried EuroOffice's Map Chart extension with OpenOffice for Mac and ran into the Python-related bug they warn about; EuroOffice does not come in Mac OS X. Most of the other apps I can find either come in Windows only (such as Microsoft MapPoint), are hideously expensive, or both. I am not looking for 3-D visualization or GIS, just for a way to create a 2-D map that represents numerical data by U.S. state (and county would be nice as well).
I currently am using Mac OS X 10.4.11.
I am willing to pay up to $50 but $25 or less would be preferable.

posted by bad grammar to computers & internet (5 answers total)

You can do it in R if you're willing to learn a little programming:

library(maps)
map("county")
map("county", regions=c("washington,king", "texas,travis"), fill = TRUE, col = "blue", add = TRUE)

Results look like this
posted by grouse at 10:06 PM on October 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Google charts API has state breakdown, but not county.
posted by hooray at 5:58 AM on October 29, 2008

Here - Zmaps Color your map, via Mefi's own Mcwetboy's blog. Search for choropleth on his blog and there are likely other links.

Also, I couldn't get this to work, but I'm on shitty IE6. Maybe it will work for you. Geocommons Map Maker (free registration req'd).
posted by desjardins at 7:54 AM on October 29, 2008

Also, the choropleth tag on delicious will probably be helpful to find other apps/software.
posted by desjardins at 8:02 AM on October 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Thank you very much for these links. I know a bit of HTML so I'll see what I can do with the Google Charts, though what I'm planning isn't a webpage but a still for a PowerPoint.
posted by bad grammar at 2:22 PM on October 29, 2008