The Map Room

Mark Tully writes with a link to the above video, part of the Visualizing Early Washington DC project, which I’ve seen before but (as has sometimes happened) I never seem to have gotten round to posting it. Here’s a description of the project:

UMBC’s Imaging Research Center (IRC) is working to re-create Washington DC in its early years 1790-1820. Remarkably little visual information remains from this time period. What began as a simple effort to use 3D digital re-creation and display techniques has become full-scale research to uncover the original landscape. In 1791, Pierre-Charles L’Enfant arrived in Georgetown Maryland with orders from President George Washington to lay out the new Federal City. What did he actually see as he rode the land on horseback? This is just one question that we are trying to answer.

I’m increasingly interested in getting more people to contribute to OpenStreetMap, so I will happily note David Ellam’s instructional videos, which are screencasts that show you, step-by-step, how to use Potlatch to add points of interest, roads and areas. Via OpenGeoData.

Rare Book Feast, a video series “celebrating the timeless beauty of books in the age of digital ephemera” (as Maria Popova puts it), opens with a look at the privately printed World Geo-Graphic Atlas (1953), now a collector’s item.

The fourth and final episode of the Geospatial Revolution Project is now live; it covers the use of geospatial technology to study and deal with climate change, drought, famine and disease, looks at the Map Kibera project as an example of cartography from the ground up, and wraps things up generally.

Previously: The Geospatial Revolution Project; The Geospatial Revolution Project, Episode Two; The Geospatial Revolution Project, Episode Three.

How about those opening credits to Game of Thrones, the HBO series based on George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series? It’s a fantasy map with gears, which is somehow appropriate. (The map will apparently change as the series progresses.) Via Very Spatial.

Previously: Maps of Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire”; More Maps of Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire”.

My friend Zaid is a hardcore geocacher; he’s working on a TV show about geocaching for the Arabic-language Middle Eastern media market. It’s called Treasure Hunters. So far there’s a two-minute teaser video and a Facebook page….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Episode three of the Geospatial Revolution Project was posted yesterday; this latest installment covers maps’ use in war, peace, security and privacy. Previously: The Geospatial Revolution Project, Episode Two; The Geospatial Revolution Project….  •  Continue reading this entry.

National Geographic Traveler contributing editor Andrew Evans stops by National Geographic’s map division in this short video; it’s a bit of a puff piece (“best place on Earth for maps” and all that) but an interesting, if brief, look behind…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Geospatial Revolution Project’s second episode went up today; it covers how GIS is used by the City of Portland, by UPS, and by efforts to bring supermarkets into disadvantaged communities. Via All Points Blog and Google Earth Blog….  •  Continue reading this entry.

A Vanderbilt University study is looking at whether playing video games improves map-reading and navigational skills. Of interest: 10 hours of first-person-shooter-style video games appears to make up the gender differences in navigational skills. Via @OrdnanceSurvey….  •  Continue reading this entry.

I’m hard on OpenStreetMap sometimes, but that’s mainly in the context of the North American coverage not living up to the rather Eurocentric hype. Because Europe is definitely where it’s at with OSM, as this video chronicling the growth…  •  Continue reading this entry.

I first heard about the Geospatial Revolution Project more than a year ago (see, for example, posts from Boing Boing and Google Maps Mania), but promptly lost it in the bowels of my very lengthy to-do list. Described as…  •  Continue reading this entry.

First Darth Vader, now Yoda….  •  Continue reading this entry.

It’s a little over a year old, but I’ve only come across it now: Europe According to Estonians. Worth it for the cartography alone….  •  Continue reading this entry.

“1945-1998” by Isao Hashimoto is a video that maps 2,053 nuclear explosions — all but two of which tests — conducted across the globe; only North Korea’s recent tests are excluded, as they occurred after this video was made…  •  Continue reading this entry.

NASA has produced a time-lapse video of the expanding Gulf of Mexico oil slick: “This short video reveals a space-based view of the burning oil rig and, later, the ensuing oil spill through May 24. The timelapse uses imagery…  •  Continue reading this entry.

This video is a visualization of the resumption of flights over European airspace after everything got shut down due to volcanic ash. ITO World combined flight data from flightradar24.com with OpenStreetMap map data; there are some gaps in coverage…  •  Continue reading this entry.

So it’s map week on BBC Four, with both Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession and The Beauty of Maps to watch (at least if you’re in the UK, grumble), and the British Library’s big exhibition opens at the end of…  •  Continue reading this entry.

In last Sunday’s episode of The Simpsons, Homer got a GPS. I think you can figure out how that went. Via GPS Tracklog….  •  Continue reading this entry.

The shmoo-like Google employees from College Humour’s “Google Street View Guys” video return to image the world for Google Earth from a balloon. (Note: it’s not entirely clean.) Via Google Earth Blog. Previously: Google Street View Guys….  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Known Universe, a short film from the American Museum of Natural History, “shows the known universe as mapped through astronomical observations,” zooming out from the Himalayas to the Cosmic Microwave Background and back in again. Via Christian Junk….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Via multiple sources, Blaise Aguera y Arcas’s TED talk demonstrating some of the more amazing, augmented-reality features in Bing Maps….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Here’s Google’s Lalitesh Katragadda, speaking at TEDIndia 2009 about the impact of Google’s Map Maker on that part of the world that is not adequately mapped, particularly with respect to natural disasters. Thanks to Richard for the link….  •  Continue reading this entry.

I remember well this Sesame Street bit, starring Grover the waiter and his restaurant customer, who misses his flight to South America because Grover won’t shut up about “this wonderful, glorious map.” When I stumbled across it again tonight,…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Via GPS Review, a short promotional video from the U.S. Air Force’s Space Command about GPS:…  •  Continue reading this entry.

A short animation from the Met Office Hadley Centre that shows “the changes in temperature across the globe, relative to pre-industrial levels, under two different emissions scenarios. The first is with emissions continuing to increase through the century. The…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Splinterheads is a movie, opening next week in limited release, that features geocaching as a plot point, at least if this teaser is any indication. Via Google Maps Mania….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Google Street View Guys, a video on CollegeHumor in which two shmoo-like Google employees go on a road trip taking Street View imagery. Via Very Spatial….  •  Continue reading this entry.

The grass is always greener on the other side, Peter Batty argues in this rather funny “georant” at last week’s AGI GeoCommunity 09 in which he defends the Ordnance Survey, sort of, by pointing out that there are significant…  •  Continue reading this entry.

This fun short video from Sheepfilms reminds me of the funny videos done about Google Earth and Street View a while back — they all intersect the map and the interface with reality. Via Gadling. Previously: The Vacationeers: Google My…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Using a GPS, Toronto cyclist James Redekop has recorded his bike routes from 2004 to 2009 — more than 8,000 kilometres’ worth — and created a nifty time-lapse animated video. Torontoist has more. Via Richard….  •  Continue reading this entry.

First broadcast in 1991, the six-part PBS documentary series The Shape of the World has apparently not been available on DVD since, but it looks like a DVD set is being released next month. Buy The Shape of the…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Al Franken, now the junior senator from Minnesota, has a hell of a party trick: he can draw, freehand and from memory, a map of the contiguous 48 states of the U.S. He’s been doing it for decades: Talking…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Google Earth apparently isn’t enough for the military. Defence contractor DRS Technologies was demonstrating this military-grade touchscreen geospatial interface — the correct term is apparently “global situational awareness” — at a recent Navy League conference; this video features engineer…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Bucky Fuller’s Dymaxion projection projects the globe onto an icosahedron (a 20-sided polyhedron) and unfolds it. Take the same principle, but project the globe onto a polyhedron of immense complexity, with a lot more sides, and you get a myriahedral…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Map Reader is an independent film from New Zealand whose protagonist is an introverted teenager obsessed with cartography: trailer; reviews here and here; IMDB entry….  •  Continue reading this entry.

“Data for Decision” is a 1967 National Film Board of Canada film that explains the work of the Canada Geographic Information System — one of the earliest GISes in history, if not the earliest — in analysing the huge…  •  Continue reading this entry.

At the beginning of this video, artist David Cerny explains his controversial installation piece, “Entropa,” which just debuted, to no considerable uproar, in the European Council building in Brussels. The video is also an opportunity to get a good…  •  Continue reading this entry.

A visualization of immigration to the U.S. from 1820 to 2007 by Ian Stevenson. Via Andrew Sullivan….  •  Continue reading this entry.

A part of the Maps in Literature project, which is interesting enough in itself (in Italian and English), Maps in Movies and TV looks at the use and portrayal of maps in TV programs and movies, focusing on fiction rather…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” segment recently took a swing at the touchscreen interactive electoral maps that have become nearly ubiquitous in U.S. election coverage (i.e., John King on CNN). Here’s the entire segment: Via Very Spatial….  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Chicago History Museum looks at Chicago globe manufacturer Replogle Globes in this short video: I always wondered why the seam along the equator had to be so big. Via Kottke….  •  Continue reading this entry.

A 1987 BBC documentary on Beck’s diagrammatic map of the London Underground; it’s nearly 26 minutes long: Via Kottke and MapHist….  •  Continue reading this entry.

A simulation of global air traffic over 24 hours: Cooool. Via Gadling and Infonaut. Previously: Flight Patterns….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Considerable buzz about an upcoming BBC series, Britain from Above. This preview (screen capture above; I wish I could have embedded the video here, it’s pretty good) uses GPS traceroutes to show sea, road and air traffic; it also…  •  Continue reading this entry.

An ad extolling the mapping features of the Nokia 6220. Via Visual Think Map. Nokia Maps 2.0 came out of beta in May, which Mapperz and Engadget covered; I, alas, did not. Previously: Nokia Maps 2.0 Beta; Nokia Maps….  •  Continue reading this entry.

An excerpt from a newsreel about the latest technology used by Ordnance Survey mapmakers — in 1953. “It used to take two men a whole year to do the mapmaking mathematics that these adding machines and electronic computers can…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Facebook app whereyougonnabe? gets an upgrade focusing on integration with other platforms (previously). Diana Eid takes a look at map art, focusing on three artists we’ve seen before: Matthew Cusick, Elisabeth Lecourt and Susan Stockwell (via GeoCarta). On the…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Vacationeers, they are at it again: Via Cartophilia. Previously: Google Maps Street View Is Right Behind You….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Beyond the conference blog, several geobloggers are filing reports from Where 2.0. Here’s a sampling: All Points Blog: Getting Warmed Up for Where 2.0; Where 2.0 Monday. Google Earth Blog: Day One. RenaLId: Day 1, Day 2 — Morning Sessions…  •  Continue reading this entry.

GPS Review has a clip from an episode of (the U.S. version of) The Office that satirizes the news stories about GPS-navigation-related accidents….  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Baltimore Festival of Maps has a YouTube channel, which has a few short clips (less than two minutes each) about the Walters Art Museum’s keystone exhibition, Maps: Finding Our Place in the World. They’re nicely done; here, for example,…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Excerpts from TMW Media Group’s Geography Tutor video series have been posted to YouTube; map-related clips include the above video on map projections, this clip on the International Date Line and this clip on the use of colour in…  •  Continue reading this entry.

At least a year old, but I only saw this FedEx ad for the first time this morning:…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Vacationeers take Google Maps Street View a little too far: Via Valleywag. Previously: Real-Time Satellite Imagery: EarthNow vs. The Simpsons; The Truth About Google Earth….  •  Continue reading this entry.

ODT Maps, the publisher (and chief promoter) of the Peters map (and general source of thought provocation about map projections and representationality), has produced a documentary about the map and Arno Peters. From the press release: This fascinating 30-minute documentary…  •  Continue reading this entry.

This is painful to watch: Via Gawker….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Global Concepts in Maps is an abbreviated excerpt from a longer educational film about map projections; more information here. I want to see the whole thing, but my, that doesn’t mean it’s good. The risible style of 1950s educational films…  •  Continue reading this entry.

KPIX-TV, the San Francisco CBS station, has a report on geotagging that covers at least two of the three bases — viz., manually geotagging photos and syncing photos with a GPS data logger — and mentions a couple of geotagging…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The driving directions feature on Google Maps has just received a major upgrade. Multiple stops and traffic conditions have (apparently) been added, but the big one is that you can now change the route you’re given to your destination…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The big news so far from Where 2.0 is the announcement of Google’s street-level imagery for five U.S. cities — Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, New York and (of course) San Francisco — which, in a fit of originality, they’re…  •  Continue reading this entry.

In this four-minute outtake that didn’t make it into the final version of the documentary film Helvetica, designer Massimo Vignelli talks about his 1972 map of the New York subway system — which, you may recall, encountered stout opposition….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Live, accessible satellite imagery is a pipe dream, but EarthNow is probably as close as we’ll ever get: it’s not live, but (updated; see below) it is real-time — just delayed a few hours. It’s essentially a Java applet…  •  Continue reading this entry.

For the last couple of weeks, Garmin’s blog has been hyping the company’s forthcoming Super Bowl ad, with an extended music video and behind the scenes clips. With the Super Bowl now over, the ad itself is now finally available:…  •  Continue reading this entry.

A funny little video about Google Earth from Tais Toi Donc: Via Urban Cartography. Previously: Ground-level Google Maps….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Aaron Koblin took FAA flight data and made some flashy animations out of the flight paths. Via atlas(t)….  •  Continue reading this entry.

“Discriminav” is a dark bit of humour from Talkshow with Spike Feresten: Via GPS Tracklog. This skit is teh funny, but what it describes is also totally possible: all you’d need to do is mash up census data with driving…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Seeing Through Maps by Denis Wood, Ward L. Kaiser and Bob Abramms ODT, 2006. Softcover, 160 pp. ISBN 1-931057-20-6 It’s really not a difficult concept: there are no “right” and “wrong” cartographic projections. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages,…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Hidden amongst the 50 animated short films put online by Canada’s National Film Board (via Boing Boing) is a 10-minute educational film about cartographic projections from 1947: The Impossible Map. Directed by Evelyn Lambart, the film uses grapefruit peels…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Caught Mapping is a nine-minute film, made in 1940, about how the road maps of the time were made — and, more importantly, revised, with a fair bit on field surveyors. I was surprised that the film reported that…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The New York Public Library’s map room — the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, rather — and its chief, Alice Hudson, were apparently on the CBS Sunday Morning show yesterday, according to a posting on MAPS-L. See the…  •  Continue reading this entry.