These issues of free and open data connect to a host of other issues including copyright, intellectual property, etc. My feeling (one Mr. Merners-Lee seems espouse at TED) is that innovation in the culture and advancement due to new creation grows with openness and accessibility to data and more broadly ideas. Bringing more people into the fold and giving them raw data to use has many advantages and disadvantages. Primarily it opens up information about cultural, physical, and other environments facilitating comparison and correlation. However there are challenges for bad choices in representation or faulty use of data or decisions that fly in the faces of conventions set out by research in fields of cartography, semiotics, psychology, graphic design and others. While mistakes will inevitably made the possibilities for innovation and new and interesting stories coming forward makes this call for data timely and an important for the future.

Another related idea for meditation might be how can those who have been trained in graphic conventions and “best” practices inform new developments in this area. Also when we creating tools for visualizations how can we encourage amateur and untrained users towards conventions while not unnecessarily restricting them from innovation?

These maps and others like them pull away all the things we normally associate with a well executed map. (base layers, ancillary data, context and setting for the theme(s) in situ). These things which make map reading and interpretation easy and rewarding, when pulled away give a fresh look at some data-set and communicate information about the area. Often these maps are quite clear showing coastlines, boarders, and other features that make up the essential base layer information of a map by proxy. Reducing the data ink of the map to only include features which are data can clarify bring conclusions forward otherwise lost. Edward Tufte says graphics should be multifunctional, “mobilizing every graphical element perhaps several times over, to show the data. ” (Visual Display of Quantitative Information). These maps accomplish just that and reflect his examples of chart redesign where chart junk and redundant ink was removed to more clearly show the data.

I think that this process can be taken to far, I for one don’t want to see multilayered maps go away by any means. But for myself I think these maps provide a new fresh look at the world revealing mountain ranges, rivers, social, and anthropogenic constructs in the white space rather than thr0ugh dedication of ink. Moving then to applications for data visualization and future map making I think a serious questioning and possible reduction of “needed” layers of information can be accomplished through the compression of information into other layers and letting data come from the absence of data in a location rather than adding more ink.

source: http://spatialnews.geocomm.com/articles/googleearthasmapviewer/

I’ve been sharing this little factoid to friends. One, who happens to be a former chemist, says that a similar need for uniform sand with well known properties exists in chemistry. I’ve since discovered that sillica sand has many important uses in manufacturing: linings of castings in foundries, etching, and others. Things we also often associate with sand also require sand of uniform size (e.g. grit for sand-papers and glass production.) There is such a need in fact of sand and sillica (compound often found in sand) that the International Organization for Standardization, geologists, and many other groups have formalized definitions of sand size and grit.

But where does this sand come from? From Illinois of all places. Ottawa sand, after Ottawa city IL, comes from the much larger St. Peter sandstone formation and is particularly fit for the task:

-source with more information here.

Here’s a small map of the location where this sandstone is located and mined in the US. The rock itself is from the Ordovician period and part of the Ancell Group laid down roughly 455 million years ago. The mining locations are the only ones listed here, there might be more.

I think think that’s enough sand through the hourglass for now. Happy mapping.

Natural Earth is a project spearheaded by Nathaniel Kelso and Tom Patterson (whose very excellent work I love) and was aided by many other big names in cartography. The project has created a set of fabulous and free geographic data all of which was created specifically for mapping. Having a cartographic product in mind when they set out has produced a collection of data in several scales (1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110m) generalized appropriately for each scale. Many layers of physical and cultural information are available with consistent attributes for features. Raster relief files, cross-blended hypsometric tinting layers, labels, and a wealth of other information is all in one place.  These data then provide a amazing base for all world or continental scale mapping. Now instead of spending time searching the web for base files and putting in the effort to cleaning up line work the vast majority of the work is done and done well.

This project seems to me to incorporate some of the best ideas of the web; bringing together highly skilled people to produce a extremely useful product and then give it away. I certainly know I’ll be using it, (and have been since I first worked with the data through the UW-Cartography lab, a contributing member of the project). This project was also set up for continued use in the future, our world is always changing, boarders shifting (see India’s new state) and better or new information coming along. You can do your part by giving back to the project and volunteering to contribute or work on future versions to keep this the goto place for cartographic data.

I could continue extolling the many other features for much too long so, if you haven’t already, go check it out and you’ll see what I mean. Happy mapping.

http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

I guess this is the place then to talk about maps… mostly.  Infographics, geography, and other (hopefully) interesting things I’ve happened upon will all likely have a space here as well.

To begin I probably should tip my hat to some other fine mapping blogs and sites many people are (likely) already well aware of. See their links to the right. These sites all hold a ton of great information, tutorials, and ideas about cartography and maps that you should really dive into if you haven’t already. Likely as they continue to post there will be more references made but in the mean time, check’em out.

That might be enough for lame openings. Hope you visit back for some real content…

Until then be well.