I propose Etymologic cartography as a field of study: Somebody had the simple but appealing idea to simply translate the toponyms on a map to English. In this case the subject in question is the USA: Some of the names are rather interesting (and were unknown to me), e.g. Asleep for Iowa, Flattened Water for … Continue reading Etymologic cartography
As announced a while ago, I went to GIS Day in Zurich, Switzerland. On my employer’s blog, I have written up a review of the event in German. Head over to find out about interesting Switzerland-based GIS projects (in-browser-translation should be fine to get the gist, I suppose). Continue reading Review of Swiss GIS Day 2012
Happy international GIS Day to all of you! I’m off to the Zurich chapter of GIS Day and looking forward to interesting presentations and discussions! Tip: Check out GIS Day on Twitter. Continue reading GIS Day 2012
The Dutch web development Studio TecToys built http://www.conflicthistory.com, a map and timeline of all important human conflicts. The base data for the visualization comes from Freebase and is enriched with Wikipedia content. The timeline lets you slice the data at adjustable interval widths. I’m not sure, just how exhaustive and geographically un-biased the coverage of the data … Continue reading Sad map: Conflicts of humankind
No comment :-b (via BoingBoing) Continue reading Cartographic art project
Researchers from MIT AgeLab and a typeface design company have investigated, how font readability of digital menus on a 7 inch display affects glance times of drivers, that is the time the drivers had their eyes on the display rather than on the (simulated!) road. Glance times were measured using an eye-tracking system. The experiment … Continue reading Potential for improvement: Font legibility in cars
The internet has been abuzz about Apple’s iPhone 5 “mapocalypse“. The Verge has new background information: Apple took the decision to ship their own mapping app “over a year before the company’s agreement to use Google Maps expired“. Apparently, the people at Apple “felt that the older Google Maps-powered Maps in iOS were falling behind Android … Continue reading Background of Mapocalypse
The Swiss population has grown more or less steadily over the last decades: With a current growth of about 1%, the Federal Statistics Office has forecast that Switzerland should have welcomed the 8 millionth inhabitant at some point this summer (jeez, I remember learning at school that Switzerland has 6.5 mio. inhabitants – you can … Continue reading Swiss population density versus that of cities
The Atlantic Cities has a nice portrait of Eric Fischer: Mapmaker, artist, or programmer?. If you have been following information visualization and geovisualization news online over the recent years, I bet you have come across Fischer’s work. A few examples: “Ultimately, almost everything I have been making tries to take the dim, distant glimpse of … Continue reading Eric Fischer: Mapmaker, artist and programmer
I’ve recently been playing with D3.js, mainly for my side-project, SoMePolis, which investigates social media usage by Swiss MPs. D3.js (D3: data-driven documents) is a Javascript library for creating complex, static or animated/interactive web graphics using HTML, SVG and CSS. The main site has a short tutorial and lots of example implementations. A well-known solid introduction to … Continue reading Visualizing Swiss politicians on Twitter using D3.js
From the U.S. National Park Service and Yosemite Conservancy comes this great short film about the skies above Yosemite NP. The distance to major cities and thus relative absence of light pollution makes for phantastic night skies. Astronomers and (time lapse) photographer and others take advantage of these conditions: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhgR3zVfo-0] For best enjoyment make sure … Continue reading Night sky above Yosemite
Recently, a friend of mine pointed me to GIS-related blog that somehow had managed to fly under my radar: www.mapbrief.com by Brian Timoney. Timoney is principal of a Colorado-based consultancy, but his blog is not what you might expect when you hear ‘consultancy’. Some articles which sprang to my eye and which will get you started on content and … Continue reading Blog: MapBrief
