Cartography

freeztar · 11-20-2007

Is anyone a professional (GIS) or amateur cartographer?

I fall under the amateur category, but I'm becoming more and more familiar with the ArcGIS software. With the advent and proliferation of interactive, on-line digital-mapping programs such as GoogleEarth, cartographic tools have become widely accessible to the "cartographic layman". How and why do you use these wonderful tools?

Here are some links to some good online cartography applets and such:

Google Earth (I'm not linking this one, you can google it

)
National Maps by USGS
TerraServer
National Geographic Maps

Fell free to add more...

Tormod · 11-20-2007

This reminded me that I wrote a "Maps and Cartography" hypography ages ago...

Maps and Cartography

I guess most links are dead by now. If you can help me update it I'd be very happy!

We should swap out some links and refresh the old ones, and add something about all the things that have happened, like Google Maps, GPS systems etc!

InfiniteNow · 11-20-2007

I thought cartography was when one took pictures of shopping buggies. What's all this talk of search engines and maps?

Would this be the appropriate place to discuss how Cheney's house has been blacked out?

freeztar · 11-20-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tormod

This reminded me that I wrote a "Maps and Cartography" hypography ages ago...

Maps and Cartography

I guess most links are dead by now. If you can help me update it I'd be very happy!

We should swap out some links and refresh the old ones, and add something about all the things that have happened, like Google Maps, GPS systems etc!

Ok, so perhaps you can swap out the links as I don't see any way for me to do it.

Hopefully, this thread will bring about discussion of coordinate systems (Turtle has mentioned B. Fuller's projections in another thread). Let's not limit this thread to Earth though. GIS data exists for the Moon and Mars, as well as other "locales"...

freeztar · 11-20-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

I thought cartography was when one took pictures of shopping buggies.

Ha, an easy mistake to make, but cartography is actually the study of cars that begin with a "t". You silly trix, rabbits are for kids.

Quote:

Would this be the appropriate place to discuss how Cheney's house has been blacked out?

Are you referring to his recent shift to Terra Preta or a security mechanism within an aerial mapping program?

freeztar · 11-22-2007

Here's an excellent article that goes into some of the history of cartography:
Secrets in rare cartography

Quote:

Secrets in rare cartography
AGS library puts UWM on the 'library' map

Whales were the economic drivers of the 1850s. So important was this resource that the founder of the U.S. Oceanographic Office, Matthew Fontaine Maury, created a map showing the worldwide distribution of sperm and right whales in 1851.

“Whale oil then was like petroleum is today,” says Christopher Baruth. “This is a graphic device that showed where the whales were located by type and season.”

Baruth is curator of the American Geographical Society (AGS) Library, where a copy of the whale map is one of thousands of rare cartographical materials and geographical photographs.

Quietly housed at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) since 1978, the AGS Library contains more than a million items, half of which are maps and charts, some dating to 15th century, and some that aren’t available anywhere else, even at the Library of Congress...

LaurieAG · 11-22-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by freeztar

Hopefully, this thread will bring about discussion of coordinate systems (Turtle has mentioned B. Fuller's projections in another thread).

Hi Freeztar,

Here's a link to one of the first useful global projections by Gerard Mercator.

Mercator projection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The maths is interesting, particularly the last reference.

Quote:

Several authors are associated with the development of Mercator projection:

German Erhard Etzlaub (c. 1460-1532), who had engraved miniature "compass maps" (about 10x8 cm) of Europe and parts of Africa, latitudes 67°-0°, to allow adjustment of his portable pocket-size sundials, was for decades declared to have designed "a projection identical to Mercator’s". This has since proven to be an error, tracing back to doubtable research in 1917.
Portuguese mathematician and cosmographer Pedro Nunes (1502-1578), who first described the loxodrome and its use in marine navigation, and suggested the construction of several large-scale nautical charts in the cylindrical equidistant projection to represent the world with minimum angle distortion (1537).
English mathematician Edward Wright (c. 1558-1615), who formalized the mathematics of Mercator projection (1599), and published accurate tables for its construction (1599, 1610).
English mathematicians Thomas Harriot (1560-1621) and Henry Bond (c.1600-1678) who, independently (c. 1600 and 1645), associated the Mercator projection with its modern logarithmic formula, later deduced by calculus.

modest · 11-27-2007

and the next big advent…

GPS-tracking, real-time, interactive, portable maps. Hey, I just made a cool acronym: GRIP-map

I have to admit: I can hardly find my way up the street without my tomtom.

freeztar · 11-28-2007

GPS combined with GIS is a powerful tour de force!

Here's some landsat mapping of Antartica from NASA. Scroll down to get to the images:
NASA - Breakthrough Map of Antarctica Lays Ground for New Discoveries

freeztar · 12-04-2007

First map to use "America" is going on display. It's quite a curious document, detailing the pacific before Lewis and Clark and even Colombus.
Map that named America is a puzzle for researchers | U.S. | Reuters

Cartography

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