A top-secret map of Omaha Beach used in the D-Day landing has been donated to the Library of Congress by the family of the soldier who carried it into battle, the Washington Post reports (mirror: Stars and Stripes). [MAPS-L]
Allegorical, Dissected and Spiritual
Writing in Commonplace, Janet Moore Lindman looks at the use of spiritual maps in early America, focusing in particular on a curious 1794 combination of dissected map (a jigsaw-like map puzzle) and allegorical map (where virtues or vices or other abstract ideals are depicted as countries on a map) produced for the education of Quaker children.
The production of Dillwyn’s allegorical map was unusual for Friends who disdained the visual arts as worldly and pernicious. Quaker abhorrence of art makes this image singular at the same time it demonstrates their adaptability to a new mode of educational instruction. Yet Quaker plainness was retained. Dillwyn’s map made use of little color, had few illustrations, contained no human figures, and relied heavily on the written word to convey meaning.
[WMS]
Map Projection Trading Cards
Daniel Huffman’s map projection trading cards are now a thing you can order. Daniel, earlier this month:
A couple months back, I floated an idea for making some fun trading cards based on map projections. I’m very happy to report that several dozen of you responded and contributed designs to help make the set happen. I’ve been spending several weeks on managing everyone and working through logistics, and I’m pleased to now be able to offer a pre-order of The Projection Collection.
The cards can be pre-ordered here, with delivery later this year (or pickup at NACIS). Each pack has 16 cards, with complete sets not available by design—these are meant to be trading cards in the classic sense. Pre-orders will close on July 6, so you have until then.
The Climate Shift Index
Bloomberg has the story on the Climate Shift Index, which maps the impact of climate change on daily temperatures in the U.S. It doesn’t quite work the way you’d expect at first glance: the index, ranging from -5 to +5, measures the calculated impact of climate change on the current temperatures. This video explains how it works, as does the FAQ.
Online Map Roundup: Apple Maps in iOS 16, Google Maps Displays Tolls, Yandex Erases Borders
Apple Maps in iOS 16 will gain multi-stop routing, which I thought was a long-established feature on other platforms, as well as transit fare/card/pass integration. Apple’s new maps will also expand to more countries, and its detailed city maps will expand to more cities in the U.S., Australia and Canada. 9to5Mac has a summary.
As announced in April, Google Maps now displays estimated toll prices when routing.
Russian search engine Yandex is sidestepping the Russian invasion of Ukraine, frozen conflicts and other contested national borders by simply removing national borders from its map. It’s being spun as a pivot to local navigation. (Sure.)
NLRB Files Complaint Against Mapbox
The National Labor Relations Board has issued a complaint against Mapbox for retaliating against organizers of last year’s failed unionization effort. If no settlement is reached, a hearing is set for October. See Protocol’s coverage and the case listing on the NLRB website.
Some Critical Essays on Maps in Speculative Fiction and Fantasy
The summer 2018 issue of Modern Language Studies had a “special cluster” on maps and speculative fiction (special cluster presumably being what you call it when your special theme doesn’t take up the entire issue). Behind a paywall, but there appear to be articles on planetary cartography and Le Guin, maps in mythopoeic young-adult fantasy, and comic book and game maps. Thanks to Andreas Skyman for the tip.
The online sf/fantasy magazine Strange Horizons (which, note, I review for) is in the middle of their annual fundraising drive. Their special fundraising issue includes an essay by Noemi Arellano-Summer: “Maps, Worldbuilding, and the Journey in Fantasy.”
Kenneth Field: ‘Dump the Map’
Kenneth Field is not a fan of the new Tube map.
Transport for London are doggedly clinging on to Beck’s iconic map, and continue to attempt to crowbar 18 separate lines/modes and 510 stations onto the map. It’s not just the additional infrastructure, but the additional demands by various stakeholders to include fare zones, accessible access detail, walkable elements, and now the location of IKEA stores due to a sponsorship arrangement. […] I’d contend the map is already an advert—of London. It’s recognisable and synonymous with the city. It’s just not particularly useful as a map any more.
His solution is fairly straightforward:
I’m not going to go through every issue I see with the map. […] Instead, I’m going to make a single appeal: dump the map. It’s no longer fit for purpose as a means to give people a clear, simple way to navigate London. Change it. Redraw it. Start over, and create a new map. It’s no longer a map of the ‘tube’. It’s a map of all the various interconnected transit systems in one of the world’s densest major cities with a fantastic public transport network. We need a new map to reflect the city.
Previously: So the Launch of the New Tube Map Seems to Be Going Well.
So the Launch of the New Tube Map Seems to Be Going Well
A new version of London’s tube map dropped a couple of weeks ago. It incorporates the new Elizabeth line—as well as IKEA logos indicating which stations are near their stores (IKEA paid £800,000 to sponsor the map). The Evening Standard talks with Transport for London chief designer Jon Hunter about the new design, which apparently took 18 months.
To say the least there’s been a bit of pushback from certain map design circles: yesterday’s MapLab has a good summary of the criticism. The map has been called out for being increasingly complicated in recent years, and this redesign doesn’t help. The interchanges in particular seem to be singled out as examples of egregiously poor design: see Diamond Geezer and Cameron Booth. Others, like Kenneth Field and Mark Ovenden, think the map needs nothing less than a complete redesign. Gareth Dennis is even willing to think the unthinkable: that “it’s time to retire the Beck-style Tube map and start again.” (On the other hand, Cameron doesn’t think the current map is all that Beck-like.)
Previously: Tube Map Adds Thameslink Stations, Becomes More Even Complicated; Has the Tube Map Become Too Complicated?
Bert Johnson’s Map Ties
The late Bert Johnson’s collection of map ties—some 50 of them—has been donated to the Osher Map Library. See their Facebook post and Matthew Edney’s tweet for photos. Bert died in 2019; he was a stalwart of the Washington Map Society and friend of this blog, and apparently quite the snappy dresser.
Google Street View at 15
Google is marking the 15th anniversary of Street View. In a blog post, they preview their next camera, which weighs less than 15 pounds and doesn’t require complex equipment or a specialized car mount. They’re also making their historical Street View imagery (historical in the sense of not current: it only goes back 15 years at most) available via the Google Maps Android and iOS apps. More: 9to5Google, TechCrunch.
Mapping the Height of Earth’s Forests
NASA Earth Observatory’s map of Earth’s forest canopy height is based on estimates from a deep-learning model applied to Sentinel-2 optical data.
According to a research team led by Nico Lang of the EcoVision Lab at ETH Zürich, only 5 percent of the Earth’s land area in 2020 was covered with trees standing taller than 30 meters.
Lang, together with colleagues Konrad Schindler and Jan Wegner, produced the map by merging lidar data from NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) mission with optical imagery from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites. GEDI’s lidar profiles give detailed canopy heights, but the profiles cover limited areas; Sentinel-2 optical data has abundant coverage, but it is not designed to measure canopy height. The researchers used the GEDI data to train a deep-learning model capable of estimating canopy heights from Sentinel-2 images anywhere on Earth.
Previously: New Map of Global Forest Heights.
Australian Federal Election Results
Leading up to last Saturday’s federal election in Australia, ABC News Australia had a page explaining the usual problem with geographic electoral maps when sparsely populated rural districts are enormous and lots of voters are concentrated in the cities. Calling the page “The Australian electoral map has been lying to you” might have been torquing things a bit, though. Then again, via Maps Mania, live election results maps from The Australian and The Guardian both use straight geographic maps, so maybe not.
Bartosz Ciechanowski Explains GPS
Bartosz Ciechanowski writes long, detailed explanatory articles about physics, math and engineering that are full of interactive, animated diagrams. His article on GPS, posted last January, digs down into all its fundamentals, from the principles of trilateration to the orbital mechanics of GPS satellites to exactly what a GPS signal consists of. “It’s fascinating how much complexity and ingenuity is hidden behind the simple act of observing one’s location in a mapping app on a smartphone. What I find particularly remarkable is how many different technological advancements were needed for GPS to work.”
All Online Maps Don’t Suck?
The notion expressed in Monday’s xkcd, particularly in the alt-text—
OpenStreetMap was always pretty good but is also now really good? And Apple Maps’s new zoomed-in design in certain cities like NYC and London is just gorgeous. It’s cool how there are all these good maps now!
—is unexpectedly more on point than not.
In 2013 I wrote a screed saying that all online maps sucked: that no one map platform had a monopoly on errors. At the time Exhibit A for the suckiness of online maps was Apple Maps; since then, and particularly since 2018, Apple has been putting in the work. Not that they’re done, but still: the product is fundamentally better now than it was then. And it’s not like the other platforms have been idle in the meantime. No one platform is going to achieve Cartography’s ideal of the universal and accurate Map—that’s inherently unachievable—but better? I’ll take better.