The Map Room

Clive Thompson’s piece on location services makes a point I was planning on making in a future piece, damn him, as he looks at how location services may transform the Web:

The whole reason the Web revolutionized the world was that it rendered geography irrelevant. People connected worldwide based not on location but on their common interests: Model-train collectors and free-speech activists and Britney Spears fans could swarm onto the discussion boards and blogs, from Chicago to Tehran. By severing the link between location and geography, the Internet turned everything upside down.

Now mobile phones are inverting everything again, in the other direction — because your location becomes most important thing about you. So how is the return of geography going to change our lives?

Via Bruce Sterling.

A new digital terrain map for the planet is now available. Based on imagery from the Japanese ASTER instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite, the new global digital elevation model covers 99 percent of the Earth’s landmass to a resolution of 30 metres; the previous digital elevation model, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, covered 80 percent of the Earth’s surface. The data itself is available here and here. See NASA’s press release plus sample images (one of which, showing the Himalayas in Bhutan, is reproduced at right). News coverage at Astronomy, BBC News and Universe Today. Via Gizmodo and MAPS-L.

A couple of articles by Derrick Story about geotagging went up on Macworld’s website back in April: one that looks at four automatic methods of geotagging, and one on using the geotagging features of iPhoto ’09, taking manual geotagging as a starting point. Via Richard.

Divine Sky: The Artistry of Astronomical Maps is a small online exhibition featuring a selection of celestial maps from the library holdings of the University of Michigan.

Divine Sky focuses on the fertile period between 1600 and 1900 that produced some of astronomy’s greatest treasures. This astronomical Golden Age was a time when “the art of science and the science of art enjoyed a unique period of reciprocity.” In revisiting it we are transported to a world where art and science were well balanced and in each other’s service, where the universe seemed smaller, and where the skies were filled with familiar characters from myth and legend.

Divine Sky is divided into four sections. Two deal with star charts: single-sheet celestial maps, and atlases, which form their own genre. All are examples of celestial cartography, a largely mathematical discipline whose goal is to accurately translate the celestial sphere onto the two-dimensional space of the printed page. In contrast, other astronomical maps focuses on diagrams that represent various cosmological theories; these provide insight into historical scientific debates over the structure of the cosmos, and into the evolution of the individual’s relationship with the universe. Drawings and early photographs contains drawings of specific astronomical objects and phenomena, providing a more personal insight into one astronomer’s way of seeing.

At right: Planisphere celeste septentrional, Philippe de La Hire (1702). Via MapHist.

All Points Blog points to a forthcoming iPhone/iPod touch application called Old Map App, which, the developers say, “displays layers of geo-referenced historical maps projected onto a modern coordinate system, so that the same location can be compared over time. Layers can be faded, adjusted, and explored freely. If the user is located within the region of the historical map, the user’s position will be mapped on the old maps to the position of the compass indicator.” The site has a short video demo.

The caption for this photo from the White House’s Flickr photostream: “President Barack Obama looks at a map donated to the White House by the National Geographic Society, in the Oval Office, June 10, 2009.” Official photo by Pete Souza. The map in question is probably this one (affiliate link to National Geographic store).

A post on the Geographicus blog about using antique maps (and reproductions thereof) as decoration: “[T]he decorative qualities of fine maps are widely recognized by interior designers who appreciate their beauty and design flexibility. Depending on the individual map, presentation, and context, a rare or antique map can be modern, traditional, abstract, figurative, serious or whimsical.”

Cambridge Mobile Urban Sensing equips volunteer pedestrians and cyclists with pollution sensors linked via Bluetooth to mobile phones; the result is a real-time map of Cambridge’s air quality — or at least the air quality along the routes the volunteers travelled. The Guardian has more on the project and its implications — I don’t think we’ve ever had pollution maps so fine in resolution, or with data so immediate. Thanks to Richard Akerman for the link.

Every year, Steve Chilton writes to remind us of the summer school put on by the Society of Cartographers; this year’s summer school takes place at the University of Southampton from September 7 to 9, 2009. This year’s themes include emergency mapping, crowdsourcing data and collecting and using crowdsourced data, the Ordnance Survey and its data, transport data, and others (see the draft program).

Previously: Society of Cartographers Summer School 2008.

“I love Bucky, but Cahill’s map is a lot better.” That’s how Gene Keyes opens his latest project, which he describes as “an interlinked set of 17 profusely illustrated web pages detailing the evolution and defects of Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion map. I contrast it with the octahedral projection of B. J. S. Cahill (1866-1944), published in 1909, and developed over a thirty-year period.” Gene, the person behind the B.J.S. Cahill Butterfly Map Resource Page (which I told you about two years ago), is understandably partisan about Cahill’s map (above left) — but, he says, that’s not to say that he’s got a hate on for the Dymaxion (above right):

My purpose here is not to diminish Fuller, but to show that if Cahill had already made a better map than such a visionary as Bucky, it is a feather in Cahill’s cap, not a demerit for the Dymaxion. Fuller’s map was a milestone toward the invention of the geodesic dome: achievement enough. But his map is a poor teaching tool which does not match well with a globe, and that is where Cahill succeeds.

And you thought Gall-Peters vs. Mercator was the only cartographic feud out there.

But 17 pages? That’s almost as long as one of those online camera reviews.

Previously: Myriahedral Projections; Cahill’s Butterfly Map; Dymaxion Map Projection.

After last week’s launch, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has now settled into orbit around the Moon. A USGS press release points out the cartographic aspects of the LRO’s mission: “Among the instruments carried on LRO, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) will acquire high-resolution stereo images that will allow the USGS to create detailed topographic maps of specific sites. USGS maps can be used to prioritize which sites are of the most interest, to guide robotic spacecraft or astronauts to safe landings, and to plan surface operations, including roving and possibly construction on the surface of the Moon.” The LRO’s mission page sets out the data that will be recorded and the instruments that will be recording it; this page on the LRO Camera provides more information on that instrument, including the resolution of its imagery.

Which is a roundabout way of saying: expect lunar maps and imagery to get way better shortly.

Ball State University’s GIS Research and Map Collection has a blog, which has already been running for three years.

“Childhood is a branch of cartography,” writes Michael Chabon in The New York Review of Books:

Most great stories of adventure, from The Hobbit to Seven Pillars of Wisdom, come furnished with a map. That’s because every story of adventure is in part the story of a landscape, of the interrelationship between human beings (or Hobbits, as the case may be) and topography. Every adventure story is conceivable only with reference to the particular set of geographical features that in each case sets the course, literally, of the tale. But I think there is another, deeper reason for the reliable presence of maps in the pages, or on the endpapers, of an adventure story, whether that story is imaginatively or factually true. We have this idea of armchair traveling, of the reader who seeks in the pages of a ripping yarn or a memoir of polar exploration the kind of heroism and danger, in unknown, half-legendary lands, that he or she could never hope to find in life.

This is a mistaken notion, in my view. People read stories of adventure — and write them — because they have themselves been adventurers. Childhood is, or has been, or ought to be, the great original adventure, a tale of privation, courage, constant vigilance, danger, and sometimes calamity. For the most part the young adventurer sets forth equipped only with the fragmentary map — marked here there be tygers and mean kid with air rifle — that he or she has been able to construct out of a patchwork of personal misfortune, bedtime reading, and the accumulated local lore of the neighborhood children.

John Tauranac writes, “Last November I came out with a new map [of the New York subway], which combines a Beck-like map on one side with a truly geographic map on the other.” He writes about on Gotham City Blotter, where he places it in the context of the dichotomy between schematic and geographic maps of transit systems. One is not necessarily better than the other.

Each style, with modifications, has its own rewards. If the immediate goal of a subway map is to get you from one station to the next, then the barest-boned schematic map can ordinarily work fine. The ultimate goal of a subway map, however, is not merely to get you from one station to another — from A to B — but to get you from where you are (A) to the closest subway station (B) that will get you the subway station (C) that is convenient to your ultimate destination (D).

The Collins Map Blog mentions the British Cartographic Society Awards, in no small part because Collins Geo picked up a couple of them. To view current and past winners, select each award from the BCS’s page; there does not appear to be a page showing all winners and citations for this year or previous years.

Previously: Backroad Mapbook Wins Map Design Award; National Geographic Award in Mapping.

The July issue of Wired has a few tips for improving the performance of your GPS receiver; they include adding an external antenna, giving your unit enough time to acquire a fix, and keeping the software up to date.

Catholicgauze explains how to figure out a map’s age by checking for known changes, like the reunification of Germany, the breakup of the Soviet Union, or the independence of East Timor. I’ve done this too, actually, but it’s just as much of a challenge for maps and globes produced in the 1950s and 1960s, when colonies were being granted their independence, as it has been for the past 20, turbulent, years. (The 1970s and 80s seem so tranquil in comparison.)

Google has made available recent satellite imagery of Tehran from the IKONOS satellite via a Google Earth layer. How recent? Last Thursday. It would have been higher resolution if it had come from the GeoEye-1 satellite, but weather apparently played a factor there.

Brady Forrest compares the maps of Tehran from the various mapping services, with the best maps coming from the services making use of user-generated content — Google (through Mapmaker) and OpenStreetMap. Via All Points Blog.

The iPhone’s version of Safari supports geolocation with the 3.0 software update, and it’s apparently trivial to write the code to access a user’s location; I wonder if it’s this easy with Firefox 3.5.

BusinessWeek’s Stephen Wildstrom explains why iPhone navigation applications are so expensive:

[Y]ou need a source of maps and a data base of directions, driving instructions, and points of interest. There are two main sources of maps, Navteq (owned by Nokia) and Tele Atlas (a TomTom unit) and they aren’t cheap. The companies selling navigation services cannot simply build on top of the Google Maps application built into the iPhone and many other smartphones because Google’s terms of service specifically prohibit its use for real-time navigation. There’s a simple reason for this: Google’s own arrangements with the map suppliers prohibit such uses. And of course, navigation services, whether on-board or network based, entail an assortment of other costs.

Via MyAppleMenu.

One recently announced example of this is Navigon’s MobileNavigator Europe (iTunes link), the introductory price for which is $95. Mind you, it’s a 1.65-gigabyte download — a lot of mapping data to licence from Navteq. Via Gizmodo, Mapperz and TUAW.

More reviews of books previously mentioned here:

• Directions reviews GIS Cartography: A Guide to Effective Map Design (see previous entry).
• The New York Times reviews The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet, a copy of which I now have and expect to read shortly (previously: The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet; More on “T. S. Spivet”).
• Universe Today reviews The Cambridge Double Star Atlas (see previous entry).

• Buy The Cambridge Double Star Atlas at Amazon.com
• Buy GIS Cartography at Amazon.com
• Buy The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet at Amazon.com

Surprisingly, Ross Racine’s artwork is drawn freehand on a computer; “my works do not contain photographs or scanned material,” he says, but you’d be hard pressed to tell. “The subjects of my recent work may be interpreted as models for planned communities as much as aerial views of fictional suburbs, referencing the computer as a tool for urban planning as well as image capture. Investigating the relation between design and actual lived experience, the works subvert the apparent rationality of urban design, exposing conflicts that live beneath the surface.” Thanks to peacay for the link.

Yesterday’s Astronomy Picture of the Day featured a portion of the Dunhuang Star Chart, “one of the most impressive documents in the history of astronomy.” A four-metre scroll dating from the seventh century Tang Dynasty, it’s apparently the first representation of Chinese astronomy. More on the chart from Nature, which notes that it’s on display at the British Library, in celebration of the International Year of Astronomy, until August 18.

James reviews Gretchen N. Peterson’s GIS Cartography: A Guide to Effective Map Design, which, he notes, is written independent of any particular software package. “Gretchen’s book is something that you can use almost anywhere with any medium and won’t get out of date. That is a great value that most technical computing books overlook. GIS Cartography is a great resource to have and one that I’m glad that I have in my technical library. I’m guessing though that it will spend more time next to my computer than on the bookshelf.” James points to the preview on Google Books.

Previously: A Book Roundup.

• Buy GIS Cartography at Amazon.com

As a child I drew on road maps, adding streets, freeways, even whole cities where none would ever exist. Dieter Janssen’s map of an imagined Toronto subway network in 2030 has a more serious purpose: he hopes his map, which dramatically extends the existing lines and adds another four, will stimulate discussion of about the future of Toronto’s transit system. Torontoist has a full-sized version of the map and an interview with Janssen, an architecture professor at the University of Toronto. Incidentally, this is not the first imagined future Toronto subway map; I think Torontonians want more TTC. Thanks to Richard Akerman for the link.