The Scottish Government Goes with Bing Maps Platform

 The Scottish Government launched their Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) site which identifies small area concentrations of multiple deprivation across all of Scotland in a fair way and allows effective targeting of policies and funding where the aim is to wholly or partly tackle or take account of area concentrations of multiple deprivation is now using a Cesium Bing Maps interface to visualize their data. The SIMD Interactive Bing Map is a mapping tool which can be used to identify Scotland’s most deprived areas and their location within each local authority area.

Now, this is a perfect example of an application that would require a Cesium Bing Maps interface. There is just a massive amount of data to visualize and it’s done in a compact, yet elegant manner using simple lists and checkboxes. Within the application, the default interface loads all of the geographies as semi-transparent overlays. You can then click anywhere on the map which will select the respective region, zoom to it, shade it as a vector graphic, then query the polygon and return information about the respective polygon to a table below the map with additional information such as the immediate geography, local authority, SIMD Rank, Domain Rank and Datazone information.

Check out the lists and checkbox data – lots of information to further drill down on the deprivation issues around Scotland that filter the information presenting on the map:

  • SIMD Year: 2004, 2006, 2009
  • Domain: SIMD Rank, Income, Employment, Health, Education, Geographic Access, Housing, Crime
  • Classification: Most Deprived (5%, 10%, 15%, 20%), Most Deprived (15%), Quintiles, Deciles, Vigintiles
  • Color Scheme: Red to Blue, Greyscale
  • Geographies: Intermediate Geographies, Scottish Parliamentary Constituencies, Local Authorities, Health Boards
  • You can also adjust the map overlay opacity for a lighter experience to see the underlying Bing Maps more clearly.