CartoGrammar-Making Cartograms the Easy Way

The primary aim of the work undertaken was to offer a production strength generic service and associated toolset for the benefit of a wider social-science audience. We discuss the creation of an open web service and supporting web site 'galleria' and tools that allow social scientists to create, share and reuse custom, bespoke cartograms. Our objectives in undertaking this work were to: 1. Make more robust (in terms of software implementation and service quality), an existing, proof-of-concept service, previously funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council under its Census Program Innovation awards; 2. Ensure that tools exist which are both readily available and comprehensible for use by novice and non-expert users; 3. Showcase user generated datasets in a way that is engaging and permits onward sharing, reuse and remix of original and derived data; and 4. Deliver a sustainable infrastructure that supports both machine-to-machine and human-machine interaction.