Collaborative Cartography

Over this past semester, I have experienced the world of cartography (as you have read in all of my blogs). We not only employed the art of cartography to create maps of our own, but we reviewed how cartography is seen and affects people in the world as well. Throughout my blogs, I have talked about x-treme cartography, historical cartography, virtual cartography and many other aspects of cartography that many people don't realize. Cartography is employed everywhere to show many different things. When I started this semester, I had little idea about the importance of cartography let alone know how to use any software to create maps of my own. But I learned how. In the beginning we made maps using data from the census burea (great information and data source) and our project was to portray this data as a map on a poster. My poster was on ethnicity. Using data from the census bureau and software from mapviewer, I created my first map. This was a big step towards my future career. From this process, I not only learned how to find data and put it into a from that could be read by the software I was using, but learned about the software as well. From this, I found out that creativity plays a major role in designing maps and tis is what hooked me. Not only are you showing information to a viewer when designing a map, but you are showing them your creativity as well. You can make a million different maps that all show the exact same thing. The next project in the semester was understanding virtual worlds like Google Earth and how to use them to our benefit when making maps and posters. Google Earth is an amazing thing to have. It gives you a whole different perspective that you can't get looking at anything else. In this project, I decided that I was going to use Google Earth Pro and Nasa World Wind (another virtual world) to talk about cycling through the mother lode in California. Using this software was amazing. Not only could I show pictures that I took about the area I was describing, but I could also use aerial photos that showed this areas topography from space giving the viewer a cooler perspective to look at. With all this new technology that was being presented to me during this class, it gave me a brighter outlook about the future of cartograpy and helped to enhance my own creativity. The last project we set out to do in this class was designing pages that would go into an atlas of Nevada. This encorporated everything I had learned from throughout the semester. With an intended audience of younger kids, I had to decide what kind of information I wanted to show but still keep it fun and interesting at the same time. With the class coming to an end, I have to conclude that I have definitely learned a lot this semester. I have also learned that being a cartographer would actually make a great career. Cartography is used in everyday life and the demand for it only keeps growing and growing. With advances in technology happening all the time, there is no limits and how far cartography will go. Stay tuned and think spatial. Some day in the future, one of the maps you see maybe designed by the mapster.

Mapping Nevada

One of the most interesting things you can do is look at maps of the area that you live in. There is so much information you can learn that you never knew before. Living in Nevada, there is so much vast area where people don't live and unless you were to drive out there, maps would be your only key to learning about these areas. But what if you were the one making these maps. What kind of information would you want your readers to know? In class we are trying to put together an atlas of Nevada hence my topic today, mapping Nevada. We have been discussing for awhile know the topics we think are important and the viewers that we expect would be looking at these maps. So we chose 4th graders as our expected viewers. Making an atlas of Nevada for fourth graders, we don't want to get to detailed and we want to make the maps fun to look at so the fourth graders will not lose their interest. For me, one of the coolest topics and one of the map pages for the atlas that I suggested was on climate. I think this would be a good page because it is important to know why Nevada is the way it is and how the weather affects this. On my climate page, I would talk about how much annual precipitation the Nevada receives, rain and snow. I would also talk about the annual temperatures and give a brief description of what it's like to live in the state of Nevada through each season. I would also like to give a brief description of the rain shadow effect. I think it is important for younger kids to know why Nevada is a desert when nearby California is green and recieves a lot more rainfall. To make this page interesting, I would add fun facts like how many days of sun Nevada expects to see each year or another fun filled fact about weather. As far as the cartography side of this goes, I think it would be interesting to design maps showing the relationships between Nevada's annual precipitation and temperatures or things like that. Another cool image could be taken from Nasa's World Wind. This photograph from space could show what the clouds do as they approach Nevada and disappear during a storm. This would be excellent evidence combined with an actual picture showing the rain shadow effect. There are many different atlas pages we could come up with for Nevada. Nevada is an interesting place and mapping it is even more interesting. The map at the top right was taken from about.com and shows the geology of Nevada

Virtual Worlds

One of the most amazing things about technology in todays world is the fact that it is so advanced it is out of this world. With the art of cartography advancing just as fast as technology will allow it to, the world of maps is getting more and more amazing.
So what is a virtual world? A virtual world basically is an unreal world portrayed as if it were real. With the help of technology, virtual worlds are depicted as almost too real. Virtual worlds today include Google Earth, Nasa World Wind, and many other different softwares that portray the world as realistically as possible. Lets go further in depth into the virtual world of Google Earth Pro (the new edition). Google Earth Pro allows users to view a virtual earth as if it were realistic. You can zoom in on cities and see buildings in 3-dimensions. You can bascially look at any place on the planet in pretty good detail and get a good understanding of what's there, terrain and all. Google Earth even allows you to view the things you want to see. Just a click of the button can show you where national parks are or even where churches are. One of the cool things about the new Google Earth is the fact that you can place pictures of anything up for the world to see. This adds to the realism that Google Earth has to offer. Another one of the amazing things you can do is fly by's. These fly by's allow a user to mark a path any where within the virtual world and have the screen automatically jump there when you push play. This is cool if you want to show people a bike path you have been riding or the golf courses you've played. With all this new technology, there is some cons to using Google Earth Pro. While being a virtual world, it is not as realistic as you might want it to be. There are still many areas of the earth that are not as clear as others. Some of the terrain shown in 3-dimensional form is a bit rough as well. But who can complain. Software like this is very useful to many people professional or not. Software like this can enhance presentations greatly. You can not only show what an area looks like with a topo map or a picture, you can also add a view from space that shows fairly good detail and the physicla landscape. How can looking at urban growth of cities be any easier when you can actually see the buildings and residential areas. In conclusion, virtual worlds are amazing and can be greatly useful. The cons do not outway the pros and this software only gets better and better. The picture above is taken from the google earth website and shows the 3 dimensionality a virtual world can offer.

Games and Cartography

Well it has been awhile since my last post because I've been busy with work and school. Today I want to talk about how cartography can and is used in games. There are many different games one can play that involves using cartography. More traditionally, one can observe cartography used in games such as Mario Bros. from Nintendo and even in the now popular World of Warcraft. The cartography used in these games usually is just maps detailing these fantasy worlds and showing you the next level and so on. But people can play games that get much more into the world of cartography than that. What if the game you played actually involves creating your own map and then using it to play your own game. Now that sounds like fun. Most people have never heard of the game geospatial disc golf. This game involves alot of the aspects of using cartography and gis while letting you have fun and get a good work out in as well. Who knew all these aspects could be put together into one game. Well geospatial disc golf is fun and challenging as well. It's basically playing frisbee golf for map geeks. The rules and steps to play the game are fairly simple. Using a compass and protractor, you map out the course you want to play. After that you draw a map of the course you designed. Then you retrace your course using GPS. After putting your map and GPS points into a computer, you georeference them so that the map you made and the points you took align. Now everytime you play the frisbee golf course, you can chart how your doing by taking GPS points of all you throws and reviewing them on your map. How cool is that. Combining cartography and games. There are many other ways to enjoy cartography and games that don't involve quite so much of your time having just as much fun as well. Most of these are fun games and tests online that test your knowledge of Geography. These games might tell you the name of a country and then ask you to click on that country using your mouse. This is a true test of your geographical knowledge. Being a Geography major myself, I went online and took one of these tests and only scored a 40%. Now that's sad. There is definitely a lot more countries than I know of. In conclusion, we have once again tied cartography to another aspect of our everyday life. Playing games. The best thing about this is that you not only have fun using cartography, but you learn something as well. Whether is something as simple as studying the map on the Mario Bros game or taking the geospatial disc golf challenge (fun and rewarding too), playing games are just that much more fun when cartograpy is involved.The map above is taken from the Mario Brothers 3 game. Click on the map to view in more detail.

X-treme Cartography

With extreme sports becoming more and more popular each year, the art of cartography isn’t far behind. So who knew that there could be such a thing as extreme cartography? There is no better rush than falling out of a plane and drawing a map at the same time! Well, that’s not exactly the point I’m trying to make but it could be fun. Back to the point. Maps are important. To me, extreme cartography is not mapping in extreme conditions, but mapping something extreme or using a map to do something extreme. First, we’ll start with mapping something extreme. Each person probably has a different opinion of what extreme is but we’ll go with mine for now. Mapping Mount Everest seems pretty extreme to me. Even if your sitting at home while doing it, it is the subject that you are mapping that constitutes what is extreme and what is not. What would even be more extreme is if you took that map and used it to climb Mt Everest. Now that’s extreme. So now that we have established some basic guidelines for extreme cartography, let’s talk about some other examples. The U.S military depends a lot on the use of maps for navigating. When a special forces unit parachutes into a foreign country in the middle of the night; they must depend on maps for orientation and navigation especially if the terrain and area is also foreign to them. Another example using the military is the use of range cards. Range cards are made by the gunners of heavy weapons on the battle field and possibly during battle. These range cards are actually little maps themselves. They detail the gunner’s field of view. On the range card, the gunner must draw a map of possible targets, dead space, and any civilian considerations that he sees within his sector of fire. This is extreme cartography! In conclusion, we have once again found another important aspect of cartography. Extreme cartography is important and fun, but also remember that safety comes first.

Political Cartography

Politics play an important role in today’s society. With the 2008 presidential elections lurking around the corner, political campaigns are going full speed ahead. For any politician, understanding where the voters are geographically is important when designing an effective strategy for campaigning. It is also important for these politicians to know where the key voters are (minorities, farmers, big business etc.) so they can be sure to plan stops along their nation’s campaign tour. So basically, a smart politician is also somewhat aware of the cultural geography of America.
But these politicians weren’t born with this knowledge and it’s probably more than likely that they weren’t geography majors either. So how do they get and understand this information? With the help of cartography of course. Actually, to be more specific, political cartography. Once again we are back to the underlying theme of all my blogs that cartography is everywhere and involved with everything, even politics.
Political cartography consists of maps that help illustrate politics. For example, on the night of presidential elections, most news stations will have maps showing which states voted republican and which states voted democrat. Politicians running in races there after can look at these maps and see in what areas their party is traditional weak in and change their strategy accordingly. If a politician is struggling with minorities, he can do the same thing by looking at and interpreting maps. Maps can have a major influence on many things. Political maps not only help politicians, but they have many other uses as well. Political maps can be used in political cartoons as propaganda. They can also be used to gain support or visa versa before going to war. These maps have a lot of power and can be very influential towards whatever goals you seek to attain. Political maps are also used widely just to show land partitioning. These maps can help prove that certain areas are controlled by certain people. This helps when trying to pass legislation and laws pertaining to these kinds of things. In conclusion, political maps like any other maps have lots of uses and lots of power if used right.
Map provided by nationalatlas.gov

3-D Cartography

If you are an amateur map reader and your trying to learn about the topography of a certain area, understanding the map could come across as difficult. Without a good understanding of contour lines, elevation marks, and other symbols and features on a map, trying to get a good picture in your mind about the area you are about to explore is frustrating. After staring at this topographical map for just a few minutes, you probably wonder how much easier this map would be to use if it were three dimensional. It would be easier. Adding a 3rd dimension to the map not only makes the map look more exciting, but it also helps the viewer understand it easier.
In most cases, looking at a map that is three dimensional gives the map reader a completely different perspective. This three dimensional view allows the reader to see the map in a way most people could not of imagined while looking at the map in a traditional fashion. For instance, try looking at a topographical map. You probably see the contour lines marking elevation. While everything looks flat on the map, these lines are detailing elevation and are a representation of what the terrain actually looks like. To the untrained eye, this map could be hard to read. Now looking at this same map in a three dimensional format, even a person who has never looked at a map before could tell the differences in elevation and get a good understanding of the terrain.
Three dimensional cartography not only benefits the viewer of the maps, but the cartographers as well. This extra dimension allows cartographers to show their information many more ways and gives the purpose of their maps a whole different perspective. For instance, if you were trying to make a map of downtown New York City and the purpose of this map was to show people the height of each building, a two dimensional map would seem bland and would probably not grab the attention of your viewers. However, a three dimensional map would jump out at your viewers and give them a good idea about the height of each building and a comparison to the other buildings.
In conclusion, three dimensional maps are fun and interesting to look at. They can give any traditional map a new purpose and allow readers to better understand that purpose.
The three dimensional map of a volcano above is taken from http://3dfmaps.com