PLSS: Public Land Survey System

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~alfrankl/landrecords.htm

The PLSS system is a method of subdividing land areas within the U.S. It was meant to be used as a way for the federal government to divide public domain lands. It uses a grid-like system and a series of "coordinates" to deliniate one plot from the next. This method provides a systematic way to locate land anywhere in the U.S. It is much more accurate than the metes-and-bounds system because it does not use natural features in the survey process which can change with time. We can clearly see that the land in Alabama has been subdidved by using the PLSS system. This map is showing how the PLSS system is arranged across the entirety of Alabama.

Index Value Plot

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2008/01/beating-heart-of-stock-market.html

Index value plots shows the relationship of each residual against the corresponding index in the data set. This would be the comparison of values of the x and y axis. The above image is an example of the stock market growth rates within a period of time. The row number or index, the x-axis,  corresponds to the order in which the data was collected and in this case it was annually. The chart above visualizes the growth rates of the S&P index from 1872 to 2007. You can see the times when the stock markets growth has increased and decreased during a specific time period.

Triangular Plot

http://addictedtor.free.fr/graphiques/graphcode.php?graph=76

Triangular plot are used to show the interaction between three variables. In an equilateral triangle, the ratios of the three variables are shown as positions in the triangle. It is widely used in geological studies but it can be used to analyze any three variable system. Here, the proportions of the three variables must always sum to zero for the plot to be valid. In this triangular plot soil textures are defined by proportions of sand, silt, and clay. This would be used to determine the type of soil based on the three properties.

Lorenz Curve

http://www.maxi-pedia.com/lorenz+curve

Lorenz curves are graphical representations of the cummulative distribution function of the probability distribution of something, in this case wealth. In short it is the proportionality of a distribution between two variables. It uses statistical values to determine its data points on the graph. This is widely used in economic studies. This graph shows the relationship between the percentage of a population and the percentage of income it acquires. Here, 50% of the population is bringing in about 10% of the national total income on average. The perfect equality line represents what would happen if 50% of the population earned 50% of the national total income on average, which is false.

Windrose

http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/climate/windrose.html

A windrose is a graphical technique used to view how wind speed and direction are distributed at a certain location. The longer spokes show winds with a greater frequency while shorter spokes represent winds with a smaller frequency. The length of the spoke correlates to the amount of time the wind blew from that direction during the time ellapsed. The colors depict the wind speed. This windrose represents 30 years of combined hourly data for April winds in Fresno, California. This shows that 50% of the winds in April come from the northwest. It also shows which speeds occur more often by comparing the position of the colored segment to the rings on the windrose.

Climograph

http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/glossary/A_D/climograph.html

A climograph is a graphical representation of the monthly rainfall and temperature for a given geographic location. The data is usually averaged and then plotted. This graph can give insights to future weather predictions as well as insights to a locations climate. Precipitation is shown by the bar graph and temperature is shown by the line graph. This climograph represents monthly rainfall and temperature averages for Memphis, Tennessee. Rainfall is measured in millimeters and temperature with Celsius. For example in January, there was approximately 150mm of rainfall with an average temperature of 5 degrees Celsius.

Scatterplot

http://www.stat.sc.edu/webstat/version2.0/graphics/Scatterplot.html

Scatterplots are types of graphs that displays two variables for a set of data. The two variables make up the data points that create cartesian coordinates for the set of data. It is a summary of bivariate data that gives a good visual representation between the two variables. By producing a scatterplot, data can be visually examined to determine if their is a strong or week association between the variables. The above scatterplot is examining the number of sepals and petals in a variety of different species. You can see that the greater number of sepals means the species usually have less petals and vice versa.

Bilateral Graph

http://kcdb.bipm.org/AppendixB/KCDB_ApB_result_dtl.asp?cmp_idy=58&cmp_cod=BIPM%2EEM%2DK11%2Ea&search=1&cmp_cod_search=&page=1&met_idy=3&bra_idy=8&epo_idy=0&cmt_idy=0&ett_idy_org=0&lab_idy=&rta_idy=1829&rta=ge

Bilateral graphs shows increases on one side of a zero line and decreases on the other. These graphs are very usefull when data needs to be presented or analyzed using both positive and negative values. The best guess as to what this graph is analyzing is a type of diode being testing showing results in micro-volts. The labels on the x-axis are the labs which conducted the experiment. So this graph is a comparison of different labs and their results after the experiment. The different colors represent when the experiment was carried out using different uncertainties in the calculations and other standards.

Parallel Coordinate Plot

http://people.cas.sc.edu/hardistf/research.htm

Parallel coordinate plots is method of visually analyzing multivariate data. These plots use a 3-axis system to display data. Each variable to be analyized and displayed will correspond to one of the vertical parallel axis. Parallels are considered to be a measure of an nth dimension. One some ways these types of plots best represent data tables. The columns represent the parallels while the rows represent the location of where the line will intersect the parallel. This plot is comparing the percentage of population against several variables that includes race, gender, ethnicity, and other.

Nominal Area Choropleth

http://personal.uncc.edu/lagaro/cwg/color/color_symbol.html

Nominal Area Choropleths are maps where the data is qualitative (categorical) and not quantitative. The data is classified into groups such as gender, ethnicity or religion. Their is no ordering to the classes, meaning they are not ranked. The data collected to provide nominal results is arealy averaged and this can be misleading to the viewer. This map is showing the degree of progress made in each county of North Carolina with regard to architectural surveys.



Unstandardized Choropleth

http://personal.uncc.edu/lagaro/cwg/color/color_symbol.html

Unstandardized choropleth maps display data that is not ranked. Meaning, there is no class that is greater or less than the other. These maps do have classes that are defined by specific value but there is no ranking. This style of map can also include raw data that has not been areal averaged. The data is usually not compared to other figures or data such as percent population. This map depicts which counties in North Carolina have more complete architectural surveys. The colors relate to the average status (completeness) of the architectural survey.

Standardized Choropleth

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/cdic-mcbc/30-1/ar_01-eng.php

A standardized choropleth map is a map in which the variables are standardized in one way or another to allow the comparison of data distributions across areas. The maps are standardized to relate the data usually to a specific area such as state, county or city. In these maps there is a specific "ranking" given to the different classes. Standardization includes normalizing the data according to these areas and analyzing it in a form such as percent area or per unit measurement. This map is displaying percent obesity standardized to an age group of persons within Canada. There are six classes that are paired with an obesity percentage range. Dark blue relates to a lower percent obesity while dark red shows a higher percent obesity.