The Map Room

PSFK has a piece on the New York Public Library’s Map Rectifier, ” a tool for digitally aligning (‘rectifying’) historical maps from the NYPL’s collections to match today’s precise maps.” There’s a how-to video.

Also announced last week, a beta release (of course) of Yahoo’s MapMixer tool, which allows you to overlay an image atop of Yahoo’s mapping engine. It seems analagous to Microsoft’s MapCruncher, which was released last year. Yahoo! Local and Maps Blog:

[A]nyone who has a map in .jpeg, .gif, or .png format can now upload their map onto a background of Yahoo! Map and mix it, blend it, or customize it. The app gives users tools to adjust transparency, pin-point chosen locations for accurate overlaying and placement, stretch, rotate, zoom, and pan.

More from Wired and O’Reilly Radar.

Previously: MapCruncher; MapCruncher Update.

Matt Fox, who georectified the Great Salt Lake bathymetric maps for use as Google Earth overlays, has made available his entire collection of maps through a Google Earth network link. The collection includes topo maps of the western U.S., geological maps and lots more. Google Earth Blog, MapWrapper.com.

Chandu Thota is leaving the Virtual Earth/MapPoint group to join another group within Microsoft. He’s been there four years, during which time we heard about a good deal of his work. For example, some previous entries: Thota on Virtual Earth APIs; Programming MapPoint in .NET; New BlogMap API, Features.

The international bug in Virtual Earth 3D has been fixed by version 1.1, which was released over the weekend (James Fee, WLL/Virtual Earth).

Version 3.0 of MapCruncher was released Friday; changes include support for transparency and the new 3D Virtual Earth engine (James Fee, WLL/Virtual Earth). Previously: MapCruncher Update; MapCruncher.

A couple of Google Earth items that made me happy.

First, via Ogle Earth, the Google Earth Automator Pack, a (still-in-development) collection of Automator actions for the Macintosh version of Google Earth.

Second, maps from the David Rumsey collection are now a Google Earth layer under “Featured Content,” Frank at Google Earth reports:

Open the folder and turn on the map that interests you. The first link shows you the locations of the different map and each description gives you a few details. You can then turn on each map and they will be overlayed in GE. Some of the larger maps are “regionated” which means they will load more detail as you get closer. I’m sure some of my mapping friends like Jonathan Crowe will be curious to see these.

You think?

Previously: Onions Have Layers, Google Earth Has Layers; David Rumsey Site Updates; David Rumsey Profile.

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Map Rectifier is an online georeferencing tool. Take a map image, identify the coordinates of a half-dozen or so points, and the program will “warp” the map image to fit the projection on the right-hand side of the page —…  •  Continue reading this entry.

John Hessler’s Warping Waldseemüller is a new blog about applying mathematical methods to old maps as a way of testing their accuracy. Sounds like it’s working the same vein as the new scholarly journal e_Perimetron (see previous entry). Via MapHist….  •  Continue reading this entry.

MapCruncher, the Virtual Earth tool that allows you to integrate your map or image into their mapping system, is now natively supported by the API, the developers report. See previous entries: Live Local/Virtual Earth Update; MapCruncher….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Old meets new: Google Earth layers for London in 1666 and 1690. Suddenly the purpose behind e_Perimetron becomes clear. Via Things Magazine….  •  Continue reading this entry.

e_Perimetron is a new quarterly web journal, the focus of which is the application of geospatial technologies to old maps. The first issue, for example, has articles that transform old maps to conform to known coordinates, assign projections to portolans,…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Jeff Thurston thinks that MapCruncher (see previous entry) is “innovative”: “It would be interesting to see ‘artistic’ mapping using MapCruncher — personal mind maps, etched drawings, action/reaction layers and other kinds of unique maps created with this product. In other…  •  Continue reading this entry.

MapCruncher is this new thing from Microsoft Research that uses the Virtual Earth API (I guess it’s Virtual Earth for the technology, Windows Live Local for the online mapping site) to integrate your own maps into their system: Once you…  •  Continue reading this entry.