Space Imaging has posted images of Mobile, Alabama (post-hurricane) and New Orelans (pre-hurricane) on its site. More to come.

0 comments

When I first began this blog back in April of this year, I had little inkling as to what other blogs were already out there. In the first four months of writing this blog I’ve come across quite a few other blogs of interest (in alphabetical order):

All Points Blog - This blog focuses on location technology and GIS. Still has a number of items of interest ot cartographers. Updated daily.

blog.kart.no - A Scandinavian cartography blog in Norwegian. Frequently has items of interest.

All Things Geography - An infrequent blog on items loosely related to GIS and geography.

Brian Flood - Infrequent blog on matters relating to GIS. Many items relating to ESRI and Google Maps/Earth.

Digital Earth Weblog - A blog put out by Digital Earth (Australia) who felt it more worthwhile to put together a blog than a brochure page. Irregularly updated. GIS and spatial data related topics.

edparsons.com - Written by Ed Parsons, of course. Ed is the CTO of the UK’s Ordinance Survey. Infrequent postings but thought-provoking.

GeoCarta - A blog on mapping and land use issues. More of a geography focus than a strict mapping focus. Infrequently updated.

GIS Matters - Written infrequently by David McGuire of ESRI. Not surprisingly, it has very much of an ESRI focus.

Glenn’s GISuser Weblog - Written by Glenn (of course), editor of GISUser, this is pretty much focused on GIS. Infrequently updated.

Google Maps Mania - This blog looks at Google Maps and the mashups that people are putting together. Worthwhile checking out if only to keep abreast of what use people are putting Google Maps to. Updated regularly.

import cartography - This blog looks at “Cartography, Geography, Python and Zope” but the focus of late seems to be primarily on the programming side of things. Infrequently updated.

The Map Room - Probably the blog that’s most dedicated to all things map-related that I've seen. Jonathan Crowe has written this blog for the past few years and has done a good job of focusing on maps and mapping. Updated on an almost daily basis. Definitely worth checking out.

Mapping Hacks - An infrequent blog on the topic of maps and geodata, with an emphasis on the latter.

O’Reilly Radar - A regular blog on spatial technology.

Spatially Adjusted - A blog on spatially-related issues, ranging from technology to thought-provoking opinions.

Vector One - Another blog on spatially-related issues. Quite wide-ranging.

Very Spatial - Discussions on geography and spatial related issues. This one has a number of regular contributors.

webmapper - Don't be put off by the technical-looking tip at the top of the blog. Infrequently updated on web mapping-related issues.

1 comments

The Globe and Mail has a graphic/map of New Orleans, showing areas of the city that are below sea level and “well below” sea level (nothing more refined than that). The Washington Post has a colour map/graphic showing similar information. Neither shows the extent of flooding.

USGS Landsat has a satellite image of the flooded areas, some it under cloud cover (by way of The Map Room). Orbimage has a couple of before and after satellite images but it is of a very limited area around the Louisiana Superdome.

1 comments

It’s still early going and most of the satellite image providers have not yet posted their images of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina but there are some images already available. NASA’s Earth Observatory has posted a couple of before and after images taken by their Terra satellite. Morei mages are available at their MODIS Image Gallery, including some great shots of Katrina coming in. Most of the images here are available in 250 m resoultion and come with projection information.

On a finer scale, Shawn McBride has created an overlay for Google Earth to show the extent of flooding in New Orleans.

Expect to see more images in the next few days as flood waters crest.

1 comments

The Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Romae project is looking to piece together a map of Rome created in 203. The map was carved on stone and measured 18 x 13 metres. Unfortunately, most of the pieces of the map are missing, making it difficult to piece together the remaining pieces. Using a number of computer algorithms, the project team has had some success in assembling the existing 1,186 pieces. All of the pieces are indexed and scanned and all of this information is available on the project website, including 3 dimensional images of the pieces.

Read the BBC story on the project.

2 comments

The BBC carried an article a couple of weeks ago about Wikipedia and suggested that the wiki model followed by Wikipedia might be expanded to include all sorts of things, including maps. This could be an interesting way of producing an up-to-date and accurate geo-spatial data set at a very low cost. Perhaps the form could be similar to London Free Maps, just on a more global scale.

1 comments

Boulder, Colo. (August 25, 2005) - GeoTec Media announced today that the 20th anniversary of its GeoTec Event will be held June 18-21, 2006, at the Ottawa Congress Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. GeoTec Media is the publisher of GeoWorld magazine and developer of the Web portal GeoPlace.com.

The conference theme, "Celebrating History and Innovation," marks the 100th anniversary of the Atlas of Canada as well as the 20th anniversary of the event. The 2006 GeoTec Event will feature sessions that commemorate the innovative contributions of the Atlas of Canada and the contributions by Canadians in the advancement of geospatial technology. In addition to these
special sessions, the GeoTec Event will include a comprehensive educational conference with keynote speakers, in-depth workshops, breakout sessions in multiple tracks, best-practice case studies, roundtable discussions and vendor presentations. An expanded trade show will feature industry vendors from around the globe.

For the first time since its inception, the GeoTec Event will be co-located with the Association of Canadian Map Libraries, the Canadian Cartographic Association and the International Cartographic Association. These alliances promise to bring hundreds of new attendees to the event.

For further conference information, visit www.geoplace.com/gt, call Matt Ball at 303-544-0594 or e-mail mball@geoplace.com. For information about the exhibition, please contact Cody Pearson at 303-355-1715 or cpearson@geoplace.com.

For a more detailed story, visit Geoplace.com.

0 comments

In this story from ABC Australia, John Deckert talks about collecting data and creating a tourist map of Arnhem Land, a remote part of the country. He indicates that it is a “terrific job.” But those of us who are cartographers already knew that . . . .

0 comments

ABC News has a short story on how a mistake in a map caused some protected forest to be accidentally logged. It would be interesting to know how this error came about.

0 comments

The Charlotte Observer ran a couple of news stories this past week on online maps. One provided a brief verview of the online mapping sites currently available, another detailed some the interesting directions that online mapping is heading.

0 comments

The Medieval Studies program at the University of British Columbia is hosting a workshop on October 28 and 29, 2005 entitled “Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Fresh Perspectives, New Methods.” Keynote speakers include Richard Talbert of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (“Greek and Roman Mapping: 21st Century Perspectives and Prospects”) and Patrick Gauthier Daché of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique et Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (“L'héritage antique de la cartographie médiévale: acquis et probl mes”). For more details, check the workshop website.

1 comments

Manhattan Transformations is a 3D interactive look at the building development of Manhattan over time. It is a little confusing at times as you try to figure out what you’re looking at but it is definitely at interesting use of Flash.

By way of CartoTalk.

0 comments

The Canadian government announced plans today to expand its mapping in the northern territories. It looks to use an aeromagnetic mapping in combination with other available data to guide ground-base bedrock mapping. “The survey will help advance the Government of Canada's commitment to the sustainable development of our natural resources,” says a press release. But how is mineral and aggregate mining considered “sustainable?”

0 comments

MapYourAncestors.com offers to map the birthplace of your ancestors using - surpise, surprise - a Google Map as a backdrop. Send them your family tree in spreadsheet format and they'll plot it all out. Click on a pin and up pops up an image of the associated ancestor along with some basic information. Below the map is a more standard looking family tree. Currently they have got George Bush’s family up as an example. Send them your family tree in spreadsheet format and they'll plot it all out. In fact, they seem to be happy to plot out anything that has a spatial aspect to it. Read the press release.

1 comments

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labratory has a number of maps / images of the planets, moons and stars. Click on a planet and get a map of the planet and many of it's associated moons, all images taken by spacecraft. The projections are all in geographic (my guess - if that’s even possible for extra-terrestrial bodies).

By way of All Things Geography.

0 comments

Here’s another “how much news is there per country” type map, similar to the Vanishing Point and BuzzTracker, both discussed earlier in this blog. This one’s a bit different because you can track the profile of countries by various news sources, including the BBC, CNN, Reuters and others. There is also an archive of past days’ profiles. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be a non-Western perspective available.

0 comments

Dubai is planning another luxury development, along the lines of the Palms. This one is a collections of islands that collective create a map of the world. The questions is - what projection is it? And will the prestige of the location in the World at Dubai be reflection of the status of the real world location? In other words, will I have to pay more than $200,000 to get my Dubai World address to match my already existing real world address?

By way of Cartotalk.

0 comments

Jim Tice and Erik Steiner, both professors at the University of Oregon, have taken Giambattista Nolli’s 1748 Map of Rome and put it up on the web. What’s interesting about this is that they have taken modern data layers and combined them with Nolli’s map, allowing viewers to flip between satellite image and the 18th century materpiece - or blend the two. Other layers of interest include gardens, pathways and fountains. The map takes a little time to load up but it is worth the wait. As well as the map itself, there are a number of in-depth and interesting articles relating to architecture, cartography, natural features and social factors of the time of Nolli's map.

Read a news article on the website.

0 comments

The Atlas of Canada has an extensive collective of current and historical maps available for viewing on line. As well as providing online maps on population, economic activity, environment and political features as part of its latest version, the Atlas also provides raster images of the 5 previous paper versions, dating back to 1906. Each Atlas gives a snapshot of what the country looked like at the time of publication as well as the changing cartographic styles. Certainly worthy of look, particular if you are in need of historical maps. Available in both French and English.

2 comments

The Burning Man festival is held in the Nevada desert and is a . . . well, apparently it requires an essay to esplain what it is. BoingBoing hosts some maps of Burning Man, including a hand-drawn one that would take some time to read. Other maps include the Google Maps version (the satellite image looks pretty cool) and others. Looks like there is a pretty enthusiatic mapping community (not necessarily professional) attending Burning Man this year. It will be interesting to see what comes out of this unique community mapping effort.

Byh way of the Map Room and BoingBoing.

0 comments

Earlier, Australia had raised some concerns about the safety of its nuclear reactor now that it was clearly visible in Google Earth. These fears were somewhat allayed but now some Dutch politicans have raised similar concerns that the information displayed in Google Earth might assist terrorists in planning their attacks.

It calls to mind the 16th to 18th century battles among European powers for superiority on the seas when accurate geographic data was highly valued and deemed essential to state security.

By way of Geocarta.

0 comments

The Globe and Mail has an attractive and well put together map of Gaza and the withdrawl of Israeli settlers that is currently taking place. Worth taking a look at.

0 comments

Cartographers may have a hard time keeping up with expanding subdivisions in California for good reason. But a 300 to 400 foot waterfall that’s been around for a very long time is another story. The San Fransisco Chronicle and the National Geographic both report about a waterfall that’s been recently rediscovered. A map indicates the approximate location.

By way of GPS Tracklog.

1 comments

As author Julia Cameron stated, “The artist is a cartographer; he maps the world. The world within him, and the world as he sees it.” Or perhaps the cartographer is an artist. The Johnsonese Gallery in Chicago is hosting an art exhibit entitled “Cartography 101” that features 16 American artists (the gallery doesn’t call them cartographers here). The show runs from August 27th to September 24th. More information at craiglist.

But can the creator of the map to the left really be called a cartographer?

By way of Cartotalk.

1 comments

That might be a bit of a contradiction in terms but that is what Number 27 has come up with. The brainchild of Jonathan Harris, a specialist in “information design,” non-geographic maps really aren’t so non-geographic. Currently there is but one example of such a map and it illustrates a world map that alters based on travel time. Select a hub city and all the other cities rearrange themselves accordingly. Hover over a destination city and the mode and time of travel appears. Harris developed this for the International Networks Archive which believes “that geography is becoming increasingly irrelevant, and that there should be a new system of mapping, based on global transactions instead of geography.” It could be argued that geography is still a determining factor here, just one step removed. Still, an interesting perspective on the world.

0 comments

When I tell people that I make maos for a living, I am sometimes asked “Hasn’t everything been mapped already?” Now I can cite them with a news article that shows them that that is not the case. The LA Times reports today that maps can’t keep up with the rapid growth facing some American cities.

By way of the Map Room.

0 comments

Considering the availability of tropical storm positional data and the annual interest in tropical storms that springs up with the advent of the first big tropical storm of the season, it is surprising that there aren’t more interactive hurricane mapping sites than there are.

Unisys has track maps for each year for all areas of tropical storm activity dating back to 1995 or so (depending on the area of interest). Wunderground has track maps of all hurricanes in the Atlantic region dating back to 1886. The University of Hawai‘i similarly has gif maps of all sectors, including a world map, back to 1995. The University of Marlyand has individual track maps for each hurricane dating back to 1995 as well as some satellite images. Geology.com also has yearly track maps for the Atlantic region dating back to 1995.

All of the above mentioned sites host static maps. For more interactivity, WRAL.com offers users the option of selecting a storm and watching it spin across the screen. Unfortunately, only 2004 and 2005 and a collection of famous historical storms for the Atlantic region are available to choose from. The Weather Information Network offers the same options on a slightly different map, also with a similar spinning hurricane. Not surprisingly, someone has taken the now familiar Google Map interface and added storm track data for 3 regions (Atlantic, Eastern and Westenr Pacific), The response time is slow but the track maps go back to 1851 (for the Atlantic region). Clicking on a storm circle brings up a familiar Google Maps balloon with pertinent storm information.

0 comments

The Theban Mapping Project is a fine example an interactive web atlas. The work is still in progress but already it is an impressive and thorough atlas of the tombs of the ancient Egyptian pharoahs. It is split into 2 sections - the Atlas of the Valley of the Kings and the Atlas of the Theban Necropolis. The Atlas of the Valley of the Kings currently contains the bulk of the work uses maps as a tool to navigate to an array of movies, images, text, plans and links about each of the tombs. The Atlas of the Theban Necropolis (of which the Valley of the Kings is a small section) employs a black and white zoomable and pannable satellite image and reveals the extent of the work yet to be completed.

1 comments

Ever wonder how your country’s currency is doing, compared to others? Probably you hear on a regular basis how it does compared to the U. S. dollar. But what about against the Ghanaian cedi or the Nicaraguan cordoba? Oanada.com carries all that information, updated daily. More interesting from a cartographic point of view is that all that can be mapped. Using a java applet, the change of a currency against all other currencies can be mapped so you can see how your currency is doing relative to the entire world, not just the U. S. greenback.

0 comments

Perhaps when the people at Amazon.com wanted to launch a web mapping site they wanted one that offered something just a little bit different. Or perhaps they just couldn’t afford or be bothered with satellite imagery and decided taking photos from a van would be enough. In any case, Amazon.com’s entry in the web mapping world is A9.com Maps, a site that shows location on a MapQuest map along with street-level photos of what’s on that particular block. A convenient way to see what is actually on the street and one that many people could probably relate to better than aerial or satellite photos. The offering of street-level photos is currently limted to 24 American cities, the map navigation is clunky and the map zoom capability is non-existent. Still, the site is only in beta development.

1 comments

Vanishing Point is along the same lines as BuzzTracker, profiled earlier in this blog. It shows what countries are in the news - and those that aren’t disappear from the map. The data comes from newspapersthat “are some of the most widely-read from countries that make up the Group of Seven (G7), the seven most industrialized nations in the world.” Bit of a slant, as a result, but it is argued that the G7 countries’ “unilateral and collective influence affect fundamental aspects of most countries' social and economic fates.”

0 comments

Virtually any GIS available today comes with some sort of terrain modeling capability. Digital elevation data has also become increasingly available on the Internet free of charge. Terrainmap.com is a good place to start, with information and links on SRTM, Aster and USGS data. It also hosts a paper by the Alpine Mapping Guild entitled Free and Low Cost Datasets for International Mountain Cartography that discusses the “the relative merits, limitations and sources of errors associated” with many of the freely available sets. For those interested in Canadian elevation data, Geobase hosts a set of 1:50,000 and 1:250,000 DEMs. The 1:250,000 DEM covers the entire country but the 1:50,000 DEMs do not (and probably won’t for a long time).

For finishing touches to DEMs, it’s worthwhile to check out Tom Patterson’s comments at Retro Relief. Here are some tips on using a Wacom Tablet and on cleaning up digital elevation models in PhotoShop. Another website that features some of Tom Patterson’s ideas is Relief Shading. Here you will find more PhotoShop techniques as well as examples of relief shading, design tips, and software comparisons.

If you are looking for still more web sites on the topic of terrain modeling and relief shading, the International Cartographic Association’s Commission on Mountain Cartography hosts a web page with a variety of links on related topics. They also have a poster on the Commission with a very cool image. On a more academic note, the Commission has also posted papers from the proceedings of the past ICA-CMC sessions.

0 comments

Google Maps made it’s debut sometime back in the spring of this year and it has already had a significant impact. What it offers to the user is nothing unusual or spectacular - zoomable, pannable and attractive street maps. The exciting thing about Google Maps is that developers (and I use the term loosely for anyone who can write html can do this) can cutomizee the maps by displaying additional information. Take, for example, the plotting of school boundaries. Or the location of crime scenes. Or almost anything else. Google Maps Mania keeps listing new and inventive ways of employing Google Maps. As Ed Parsons writes in his blog, “In a few months Google Maps has done more to allow the individual to develop mapping based websites than the traditional GIS industry has done in 10 years. The democratisation of Geographic Information in this way is the result of two things, firstly a simple, slick API for developers and secondly and most importantly of all, the making available of a consistent source of commercial geographic information at no cost to the developer or user.”

0 comments

Just van den Broecke has put together a GeoSkating web page where users who have access to a GPS unit with Bluetooth technology and a cellphone can collect and augment data on roller-blading / skating routes post them immediately to the Internet. “The key idea is that while skating, GPS position data is being assembled and published to a server through a mobile phone. At the same time the skater can enrich the GPS data with road surface ratings and by submitting media items (pictures, videos). The server will draw geographic maps showing road quality through colouring plus the submitted media on the GPS locations where they were captured. In addition, skaters can also be seen moving in real-time on the map while skating!” The area of focus is currently the Netherlands but I wouldn't be surprised if this idea is picked up elsewhere.

0 comments

When J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings was published, it not only set the standard for fantasy novels but also established how maps of fantasy lands were to appear. It seems that any fantasy novel that is published must come with a map - something that can hardly be said for any other type of novel. These maps tend to appear much the same, employing drawings of trees and mountains to indicate forested areas and areas of rough terrain. While details on key geographic features are usually abundant, spatial positioning and scale details are not.

This is also the case with Tolkien’s map. A few cartographically-minded Tolkien afficionados have taken it upon themselves to tie the map of Middle Earth to real world coordinates. Obviously, a number of assumptions have to made to be able to do this. Lalaith attempts a somewhat scientific discussion of the issues faced when trying to geo-reference Tolkien’s world but his/her uses of abbreviations without explanations tends to detract from his/her discourse. Inspite of this, an interesting overlay of the maps of Europe and Middle Earth is provided.

Alberto Monteiro provides a couple of maps, one based on Lalaith’s suggestions, and one based on Beregond’s suggestions whose web page, sadly, is no longer available.

On a larger scale level, The Atlas of Middle Earth is a fairly comprehensive effort at providing greater mapping detail than is available at the back of most of the paperback versions of the novel. The maps included in the book include the route of the travels of the main characters in the novel as well as contour elevations. It also includes an extensive gazetteer.

2 comments

From the ridiculous to the sublime, perhaps. If the Springfield map was a bit too fanciful for you, perhaps you'd like to ponder Saul Albert’s thoughts on Critcial Cartography. Be warned, though! It's heavy on the philosophy side. It reminds me of the lectures I used to enjoy while taking philosophy in university. Saul Albert has been involved in a number of mapping-related projects, including the London Free Map, mentioned earlier in this blog.

0 comments

0 comments

The Ontario government announcened on Wednesday that it would map the province’s far north’s mineral potential. Read a news story in the Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal or the government’s own press release (along with photos - anyone care to critque the maps?).

1 comments

Directionsmag has a 2 part article on moving a map from GIS to a graphics program (Part 1 & Part 2). The focus is on using Illustrator as the graphics package and there is some discussion of Avenza’s MaPublisher software. Surprisingly, there is little talk about the different issues facing getting the data out of the various GIS software packages. Also surprising is that there is still a need to export from a GIS and use a graphics package to finish a product.

0 comments

There are a few cartography-related forums or discussion groups on the web (in no particular order):

1. Cartotalk - this group has been in existence for about a year and bills itself as a forum for cartographic professionals. Much of the focus seems to be on the technical aspects of cartography.
2. DirectionsMag - has a number of discussion groups going, none of them specifically dedicated to cartography but all cartograpghy-related. The focus here is on software-specific.
   
3. geocommunity - runs a geomatics-focused discussion group that includes cartographic issues but again, the focus tends to be more software-specific.
4. ESRI - hosts its own cartography discussion group but the postings are pretty thin.

And then, of course, there’s the CCA’s own email list. To subscribe go the the CCA webpage.

2 comments

0 comments

0 comments

1 comments

If this blog hasn’t provided you with enough photos of Carto 2005, check out the MUN collection of images.

0 comments

The Library of Congress "Surveying and Mapping" exhibit, sponsored by the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) and the Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS) will be unveiled at its Geography and Map Division on the basement level of the Madison building in the afternoon on Tuesday, September 13, 2005. This exhibit features winning entries from the ACSM-CaGIS Map Design Competition over its 34 year history. It also features winning surveying and plat map entries from the National Society of Professional Surveyors Map Competition.

The Madison building is located at the Southeast corner of 1st St. and Independence Ave., SE, Washington, DC. 1st Street SE lies on the east side of the Capitol building, and separates the Capitol from the Supreme Court building and the Library of Congress building (old ornate building).

ACSM will hold a reception on Tuesday, September 13 immediately after the unveiling. The location for the reception is still being negotiated, but will be nearby to the Madison building. The public will be able to begin viewing the exhibit at start-of-business on the morning of Wednesday, September 14.

Thanks to all who have expressed interest in the exhibit, and especially to those who donated so it could happen, including among others, National Geographic Society, National Geodetic Survey, ESRI and POB Magazine. If you wish to donate funds for the reception please contact Curt Sumner at curtis.sumner@acsm.net.

0 comments

0 comments

FWC.COM reports today that the USGS is facing problems archiving data and maps. My favourite line from this story is that someone “had to consult old-fashioned printed maps to check if power lines encroached on a particular area of land.” I hadn’t realized that paper maps were so out of fashion already.

0 comments

The Christian Science Monitor has a reivew / story on Herman de Blij’s (that’s Herman the Happy for those who don’t read Dutch) book Why Geography Matters written, seemingly, from a very American perspective.

0 comments