Annalee,
While many people have written and spoken inspiring ideas about geography,
I find the maps and images themselves most inspiring. For me, there are a
few maps or types of maps that carry special meaning because they
represent real places or real events that we can experience in person.
I'm sure everyone has their personal favorites. Perhaps a survey of how
maps generate emotion would be of interest to Wired?
Most adventures involve a simple map. This line map of Sunrayce97 drove
the imaginations of hundreds of solar car kids (including me).
http://www.engin.umich.edu/solarcar/sunrayce/sr97map.gif
The races continue today. The route changes each time:
http://www.americansolarchallenge.org/
I'm surely not the only person who spends hours thumbing through paper
maps pondering places like these islands inside an island:
http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=45.19288~-87.344184&style=h&lvl=16
http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=45.186514~-87.364311&style=h&lvl=14
These digital images still fall short of the coolness of holding a real
3'x3' print of the overhead while sitting in a little boat next to one of
those in-island islands. We all hope that portable digital devices will
catch up. Since they haven't yet, I actually had to get the print before
going there.
Everyone loves USGS quad charts. Free map data from the US government is
inspiring both in concept and in actuality. The USGS map centers in Menlo
Park CA, Denver CO, and Reston VA might remind you of the DMV or jury
duty... until you open a map drawer:
http://www.usgs.gov/visitors/print.html
One of the first places that I saw overhead imagery online was this MIT
Orthographic Projection server for Massachusetts:
http://ortho.mit.edu/nsdi/seamless6.cgi?zoom=8&x0=249592&y0=895075&action=zoomin&pwidth=1023&pheight=768&x=495&y=399
While the big portals have surpassed its functionality in recent years, it
might be relevant to your analysis. (note the word 'seamless' in their
URL :)
You've probably found plenty of historical info about cartography. Two
items from more recent years are:
Eduard Imhof's "Cartographic Relief Presentation" which documents
the successes and pitfalls of showing the third dimension on a
flat map. A fascinating, detailed, and beautiful book.
Originally written in German in 1965, deGruyter reprinted 1000
copies in English in 1982. You might have to dig to find it. Ed
Tufte's accolades for the book are here:
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=000051&topic_id=1
Geoffrey Dutton's Quaternary Triangular Mesh is both interesting
and in some ways representative of how the ancient art of
cartography is changing in the modern era of digital processing.
QTM is described in several ways on his web site:
http://www.spatial-effects.com/
including this pedagogical cartoon:
http://www.spatial-effects.com/v1/
Looking forward to *see*ing your article.
John
--
________________________________________
John R. Frank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Founder and CTO
MetaCarta, Inc.
Cambridge - Washington - Houston
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