Cartographic Perspectives (E-Journal - North American Cartographic Information Society, NACIS)
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Australia in Oak, Copper, and Quartz
No full textThis article describes a map I made based on a trip to Western Australia I took with my wife in 2014. The map is sculptural, constructed using a combination of wood, metal, and semi-precious gemstones. For the base of the map, I used a 44.5 × 40.5 in (113 × 103 cm) piece of quarter-sawn white oak veneer plywood. Guided by a 1-inch (2.54 cm) grid system, I drilled 773 holes of four different diameters to show the land area and general shape of the continent. I chose two different gauges of copper wire to represent driving and train routes. Amethyst stones represent alkaline saline lakes that Holly—an extremophile microbiologist—sampled for resident microbiota. For the one acidic saline lake she sampled (pH 3.5), I used rose quartz instead of amethyst. I highlighted the stromatolites we observed at Shark Bay (Western Australia) with a green diopside mineral. Finally, anywhere we stayed of note is represented with one (or more) red map pins. The final product is 44.5 × 40.5 in (113 × 103 cm) at a scale of 1:4,118,400 (1 in = 65 mi; 1 cm = 41.2 km)
Review of Across This Land: A Regional Geography of the United States and Canada, Second Edition
No full textuMap: A Free, Open-Source Alternative to Google My Maps
No full textSince their release in 2005, Google Maps-based tools have become the de facto solutions for a variety of online cartographic projects. Their success has been accompanied by a range of critiques denouncing the individualistic market-based logic imposed by these mapping services. Alternative options to this dominant model have been released since then; uMap is one of them. uMap is a free, open-source online mapping platform that builds on OpenStreetMap to enable anyone to easily publish web maps individually or collaboratively. In this paper, we reflect on the potential and limits of uMap based on our own experiences of deploying it in six different mapping projects. Through these experiences, uMap appears particularly well-suited for collaborative mapping projects, due to its ease in connecting to remote data and its high level of interoperability with a range of other applications. On the other hand, uMap seems less relevant for crowdmapping projects, due to its lack of built-in options to manage and control public contributions. Finally, the open-source philosophy of uMap, combined with its simplicity of use and its strong collaborative capacity, make it a great option for activist mapping projects as well as for pedagogical purposes to teach a range of topics including online collaborative cartography
Review of Frederick Law Olmsted: Plans and Views of Communities and Private Estates: The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, Supplementary Series, Volume 3
No full textVisual Storytelling with Maps: An Empirical Study on Story Map Themes and Narrative Elements, Visual Storytelling Genres and Tropes, and Individual Audience Differences
No full textVisual storytelling describes the communication of stories through illustrations, graphics, imagery, and video instead of, or in addition to, oral, written, and audio formats. Compared to their popularity and wide reach, empirical research on map-based visual stories remains limited. We work towards infilling this gap through an empirical study on data journalism, providing the first assessment of four emerging design considerations for visual storytelling with maps: story map themes and their constituent narrative elements, visual storytelling genres, visual storytelling tropes, and individual audience differences. Specifically, we recruited 125 participants to an online map study, requiring them to separately review two visual stories and respond to a series of free-response and Likert scale questions regarding their retention, comprehension, and reaction. We followed a 2×2×2 factorial design for the visual stories, varying their themes (US presidential campaign donations, US coastal sea-level rise), genres (longform infographic, dynamic slideshow), and tropes (color highlighting, leader lines), while holding other design dimensions constant. The story theme did not influence the participants’ total retention or comprehension, indicating that a three-act narrative and its constituent elements can be applied consistently and effectively across variable kinds of topics. Instead, genres and, to a weaker degree, tropes influenced total participant retention, pointing to the importance of intentional design in map-based visual storytelling. Participants overall performed better when the visual storytelling designs used longform infographics or “scrollytelling” (genres) to structure content and leader lines (tropes) to visually accent information. In contrast, the story theme influenced audience reaction, with participants feeling significantly more concerned about and upset with the US presidential campaign donations story compared to the US sea-level rise story. Individual audience differences by expertise, motivation, and prior beliefs also influenced participant reaction. Our study signals a need for establishing a research and education agenda on map-based visual storytelling in both cartography and data journalism
Review of Thematic Mapping: 101 Inspiring Ways to Visualize Empirical Data by Kenneth Field
No full textThat’s a Relief: Assessing Beauty, Realism, and Landform Clarity in Multilayer Terrain Maps
No full textTerrain maps are often composed of shaded relief along with other raster layers which we call thematic terrain layers to create aesthetically pleasing and clear maps of physical geography. Despite that the interplay of layers is of primary concern to a cartographer, much of the research on terrain mapping has focused on studying terrain layers individually. This research aimed to fill this gap by evaluating the effect of combining shaded relief with thematic terrain layers and assessing ratings of beauty, realism, and landform clarity in an exploratory online user study. Specifically, we tested the combination of: manual, multidirectional, and ray-traced shaded relief with three thematic terrain layers: hypsometric tinting, land cover, and orthoimagery. There are five main findings from this exploratory study: (1) there was a direct correlation between beauty and realism scores, (2) the manual relief we tested was consistently rated lowest for beauty, realism, and landform clarity, and orthoimagery was rated the highest for beauty and realism, (3) shaded relief was more influential than thematic terrain layers on landform clarity ratings, (4) participant’s geographic familiarity had a significant impact in four specific instances of the user study, and (5) neither shaded relief or thematic terrain layers were the sole contributors to map reader perceptions of beauty, realism, or landform clarity. We conclude by identifying limitations in our stimuli design and presenting ideas for future research studies on terrain design
About the Cover
No full textThe cover of this issue of CP features a hand-drawn world map in the Raisz Armadillo projection, created by Madeline Grubb. This piece was originally featured in The Projection Collection set of map trading cards. You can see more of Madeline's work at maddygrubbmaps.github.io
Paint it as You Ski it: an Interview with Ski Resort Map Artist James Niehues
No full textJames Niehues has painted more than 200 panoramic resort maps. His 30-year body of work has changed how mountains are represented, and is familiar to many skiers. Charles Preppernau spoke with the artist to discuss mapping techniques, his new book The Man Behind the Maps, and his new Great American Landscapes Project. Mr. Niehues’ work can be found at jamesniehues.com