Collabrative Geography

Reviewing the blogs on collaborative geography made me think of events during geography 412 that was collaborative. During our Google project 2 I got to work in a group dedicated to using Google and sketch up to recreate what Goldfield actually looked like during it's heyday. The interesting part of this project was how small Goldfield is today and how large it was when it was at its peak production. Just the grandeur of the Goldfield hotel tells you how much money was coming out of the mines. I found out through some readings that Theodore Roosevelt made an appearance a Goldfield during his presidency. What we set out to do was that the old snaborn maps would be set up on Google earth and two of the areas buildings, such as the hotel and the courthouse, would be sketched into 3-D.
Also during the semester we were to do a collaborative work on doing a Nevada Atlas for Nevada schools. This project would have required that we all work together to create not just single pages on our own, but to work out all the pages between us and create an Atlas that was truly collaborative in that everyone had a hand in creating the maps. It would have been fun to see how that type of project would have turned out.

Mapping Nevada

One of the was I see Nevada Mapping is in Google Earth. Many of the areas of the state still do not have High resolution images of cities and towns, so its hard to get a feel for the town from an aerial shot. One of the areas I keep complaining that should be higher resolution on Google maps is Virginia City sine it is a National Historic land mark. Bodie is in a high resolution picture and is also an Historic land mark. I just believe that some areas of Nevada need more pictures taken. I am just glad that Google finally got all of the roads right for Nevada and placed Virginia City in the right area instead of out near the Virginia City Highlands.
On a positive note about Google maps is the ability for people to post pictures and link area information into Wikipedia. This allows the people who have visited the area to post pictures of the area as they see it and some of the pictures are rather beautiful landscape shots of the area. Also allowing the information on the area to be linked to Wikipedia allows the person who is investigating a far off town to know a bit of information about the towns history. A really good source of information on towns would be great for High schoolers or grade schoolers to do a report. Especially since allot of the articles written on Wikipedia about cities is done by historians or long time locals.

Oddity in Live Search Maps

These are just a series of screen shots of my parents house using Microsoft's Live Search Maps with birds eye view turned on. Starting above I came from one direction and got my fathers truck in the picture. Next I come from above and now my fathers truck has lumber on it. Then I come from the west and now the truck is gone. Also when I turn the image when my fathers truck is present, it suddenly disappears when I look east west and south. Thought it was just funny that this occurred with in the shots. It is interesting to note how long the time between different photo bands the satellite took.

Virtual Worlds

Google Mars is my second favorite virtual world. The picture above is of Google Mars and where the Mars odyssey rover currently is. Being able to view the location of the rover in real time is amazing to me since, just a few years ago, the only way to know where the rovers or landings occurred was to check the NASA website and look at a static map. Now we can look at worlds that are not are own and get a good fell for how they look without even seeing them up close in person, but up close with the aid of a satellite. Just being able to have a non-static map to the galaxy is extremely fun for someone like me who loves astronomy. Being able to view various moons and how the planet they orbit looks from them is absolutely amazing to me. I never thought we would be able to view the moons of Jupiter or Saturn without having to look in a book at a couple of pictures to get a sense of how the moon orbits its parent planet.

3-D Cartography

3-D Cartography is a great way to help people get around, but the current limitations of on board GPS navigation systems does not allow the use of a 3-D graphics engine. I have heard that within about 5 to 10 years that vechiles will come with computers powerful enough to display a 3-D map. So the technology is coming and right now we just need to perfect the current cartographic technology. So when cars do have powerful computers within them they will be better able to take advantage 3-D maps.
The current GPS navigation systems have their flaws in that they have simple maps to convey where the person is. One problem is that since they are so simple people often listen to the voice and not look at the map. This leads them into restaurants, rivers and, literally, dead ends. 3-D cartography would help alleviate the drivers need to rely on the voice of the GPS system because they could look at it and see where they are on the ground through the use of remote sensing and GPS. Now that the person could see that the systems is leading them towards an in movable object or a nice big river, they can take the steps needed to avoid disaster. Of course this type of system cannot do anything to stop someone with the idiot gene, but it would help those trying to see where they are going before the actually go that direction.
Also by looking at a 3-D map before you go to said destination is always a good decision. On my recent trip to San Fransisco I was able to see buildings and such before I even drove into the city. Although this system was unable to exactly duplicate how crowded the streets and how tall the buildings were. But nevertheless I found my destination right off the bat, but did not realize it due to funky lighting conditions, but I swung around the block and got back to where I was supposed to be.

Spatial Games

For this post I decided to talk about games that I know and discuss how people interact with the environment spatially. First off I will start with World of Warcraft where everything is spatial. One of the main things that comes to mind is how player vs player combat sometimes plays. The people in the game who are experienced us the terrain to their advantage and try and use hills walls and such to hid themselves or break a lock on themselves from another player targeting them. Even hiding the opponents flag until you get yours back is an experiment in how spatial aware other players are. I my self have hidden in plain view and have had many people walk by me because I hid in a dark corner that people would run by without looking at.
Also in the game you get people asking where to go and, after a lengthy conversation, find out that they have not explored the map at all and have no clue what the the small sections within each area are called. Now it is an ongoing debate to whether these type of people are lazy or if they just do not care to explore on their own and discover the area themselves. Sometimes though it is because they are exploring, just that they got their east and west mixed up and went the wrong way, which is amazingly common. I too get mixed up and head east when I am suppose to go west. This is one of the spatial problems that I cannot figure out in the game and I wonder if a full fledged compass would reduce this problem.
Next I want to discuss any first person shooter because when a person plays that type of game you have to be spatially aware and if your not you will not last long. When playing a game like and FPS you have to know the layout and where good hiding spots are. You just can not run into an area and just willy-nilly shoot at everything because the more experienced player is probably hiding and waiting for you to do just that. To play a game like that effectively you have to understand where you can go, what type of supplies are there, and is it closer or farther away from enemy territory? It is always interesting to see how people react to an in-game spatial problem and how the ope with others using the area more effectively.

Political Cartography

This map is a breakdown of the French vote for the European Union. The site that I got this from stated that this map looked familiar in many respects. From what I was able to gleam is that the areas in red are voting no while the areas in blue are voting yes. From the sites that I was able to fin this on, excluding French ones, no one had a a firm grip on whether the red/blue relationship is the same as we use it to some extent. But I doubt this sense the French state has many more political group and it was just a happen stance that they used blue/red instead say yellow/orange. it would seem to me that it is just easier to use red/blue since the colors go well with each other and have been used before. It is interesting to see how the similarities are to he U.S. political map in that the inner areas are red , while the areas near large cities an coastal areas are blue. I would like to see someone give a better break down of the color so that we can see which areas are truly red and blue and which are purple. I believe those types of maps give a better telling of the story and what is going on. I found on one of the sites that the area on the upper right is the area of Brittany and the people seemed confuse on why it was part blue and part red. Seems that most people thought that it should be a solid color.
The only problem I had with finding out information was that I don't read French, so if someone who can read French would try to find out what the colors mean I would appreciate it sine there are a few sites in French that I found it on, but could not read.

Hazard Map

This map comes from google earth, and has the earthquake layer turned on. Now not necessarily a government hazard map, this map shows you that the area around Mammoth Mountain is a hazardous area to ski in due to all of the earth quakes in the area. Since google earth is free, anyone can go lookup a place and see if it is highly active in geological terms, or if the area has a lot of seismographs. This would be interesting to see if people turned this layer on more often and if google updated it more often if people would avoid certain areas because they can look the area up on google earth and see if there are any major hazards reported in the area.

You could also turn this map into a printed hazard map rather easily, but it works better on being online. Maybe someone could print it and hang it up in one of the ski lodges near mammoth or in the community center and see if people go to google earth more often to see what all the dots mean and when the earthquakes occurred. It would defiantly raise awareness to tourist who do not know much about the area and give them a sense of how active the area is. It is for people to know that the area they area currently skiing or visiting is highly active and has many problems that come with being an active geological zone. But it still would be interesting to see if google got more hits than normal for the Mammoth mountain area if someone were to post this map near a lodge or in one.

Old Map/New Map

This old 1868 map of Reno has seen better times, but at least it is still around in a large chunk. This map gives you a good of the center of town just across the Truckee River, but is missing a piece of the upper left and the right side past the Reno name. I thought this map put all of the buildings and streets in a nice classic square that is easy to see. The buildings have first of all letters then numbers, which means this was part of a larger series of maps. I thought it was interesting how stylized the Reno name was on this map, something not often seen on a map that was probably updated every year or so since this was made during the Comstock Boom. Also in the upper right remnants of the drawings of the buildings can still be seen, but the numbers and letters have worn off, making it seem like an unfinished product instead of worn.
The newer image is from Google Earth with the street layer turned on. I tried to zoom to the same height to get the shot to make them sort of match up, but found that the google image would not size right. Anyway you can see how the older map differs from the new satellite photo of the same area. An interesting note is that the cartography from the 1868 made the Truckee River seem like the Mississippi River just from the size he drew! In the older map you can also see the old ditch that used to supply water to someones ranch or farm. This is interesting since that the area where it would be on Google is now paved over with streets and houses. Now I don't know if it is a change in the river or the cartographer didn't get the shape right but it seems that the shape of the river has changed since 1868. this can be seen from the old map to the Google map.

News Maps

The first thing I noticed about the news maps that I viewed is that they are rather simple maps that have a few key features. First of these features is that the all have a background of simplified geological mountains, such as the ranges you see to the right. They usually don't have an over-bearing existence and are more of a backdrop to what is being shown.
Next in line is that news maps also show the surrounding countries, which gives the average viewer a look at the names off these countries such as Turkmenistan, not a commonly seen country. Now if people really paid attention to these little details they would soon be able to know what countries surround said country and hopefully know the generally location on a globe. What I like most about this particular map is how the bordering countries names are in a smaller font than the country we are focused on. It makes the main country more important, but also allows you to see who borders this country.
The last item that I found about most news maps is that they always have the capital off the country listed in a prominent font, with all the other cities in a slightly smaller font. The one thing I would like to see are that the bordering countries have their capitals listed as well. They would not have to be in a large font as the main country, but to have them there may give the average viewer a better geographical lesson than they would otherwise get. The do list the bordering seas and gulfs of the countries they focus in on, but maybe they could also put major mountain ranges since they find the oceans important? Just a thought that I would like put out there and see what others think about it.

Interative Maps

I looked at a couple of sites that came up in a search for interactive maps, the first map was a children’s map. It was a simple map that showed the states in different colors and when the cursor was scrolled over a state, lake or ocean it would display its name. For states it would also display the capital city of that state. I found it useful for children so they could learn the states names and capitals by scrolling over them in an order they wanted, which means they do not have to stare at a static piece of paper. The website was www.yourchildlearns.com/us_map.htm.
The next interactive map used the google map engine to mark areas where botched police raids happened and innocents were hurt or killed. The site allowed the user to zoom in on certain areas to see more of them since some were grouped together. Once a tab was selected it would give information on what happened and the sources it came from. It is interesting to note from the articles that they pulled up where all from 2000 or 2001, so some of the information is out of date. That website was www.cato.org/raidmap/.
The next interactive map that I found interesting was from the CNN interactive website. These maps allowed a user to look at front lines during WWII and cold war lines that were drawn afterwards. It also had maps on other wars that gave information about important events and front line movement. The only problem is that the back function would sometimes take awhile to go back because some of the links would take you forward and would require multiple back button presses to get back to the main menu. That website was www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/maps/.

Maps and the American Identity

I got this map off of the visitor information website setup to show visitor the different areas of Nevada. As you can see from the map it divides Nevada up into five different areas, the most notable being the Las Vegas Territory and Reno-Tahoe territory. Notice that the map mentions the most important places by name, Las Vegas, Reno and Tahoe, and leaves the rest of Nevada with a general definition. The Las Vegas and Reno-Tahoe Territories even go along the county boundary while the rest are just generalized. To me this reflects the American identity of Nevada as basically having two important areas and that no one really thinks there is anything else to the state. If the tourist information website does not even try to show off the rest of the state by there names and only as 'Pioneer' or 'Cowboy', then we defiantly know where all of the tourists are in the state.
Also in this map you can see that the areas of both Las Vegas and Reno have many towns near them listed while only the most major of outlying cities are listed in the rest of the state. To me there is just one big blank area in the middle of the map while all of the major areas are crowded to the west and south away from the middle. This reinforces the perception of Nevada as having nothing out there, and therefore reinforces the American identity of Nevada as one big wasteland. I think it would have helped if the had at least put a back shading of mountains of some sort, maybe even overlay this map over a topographic map to give it a little depth. It would have helped show that there are mountains and valleys and not make it seem like a long stretch of flatland.
But at least this map also reinforces the idea of the Wild West and the fact that it is less populated. To me it seems like a double standard where you might not want to see your state being portrayed as ‘empty’, but at the same time it has the ability to awe someone who comes from an area where there is no room and each city just blends together. So I would have to say that Nevada’s American identity is both a curse and a blessing as it allows our state to be seen by some as a wasteland, maybe, but also as an expanse of land that is not filled from edge to edge with major cities. Although the map could have been made better, it displays all of the qualities, good and bad, of Nevada.

False Map

This map that I found on the Delamare Libraries website for historical maps for Virginia City displays a claim map that has been redone to include the Sutro Tunnel. As you an see in the map there is a picture at the bottom that displays the Sutro Tunnel entrance prominently and on the top the mines that make up the Comstock mining district. The original map that this one is based on had no picture at the bottom and at the top had a mine depth chart that showed the approximate depth of the mines at the time the map was made. The previous map to this one was, to me, useful and had a purpose. But the above maps purpose is an advertisement for the Sutro Tunnel.
The drawings at the top of this map replaced the mine depth chart that had been originally there, making it hard for a person to tell what the current depth of the mines where without doing some research. The reason that they replaced the mine depth hart is so that people that invested in the tunnel did not see that the mines were fast approaching the point where the tunnel would come in and eventually surpass the tunnels depth. Although the tunnel was useful in that the pumps did not have to pump the water to the surface; they only had to pump it to the beginning of the tunnel. But the fact that this map takes away an important part of the previous map and replaces it with a drawing of the mines and where they are lessen its appeal to me.
But I do have to say that it probably helped sell the Sutro Tunnel, given the fact that investors like nice pretty graphics and pictures to look at which makes it easier to sell them an idea. Without this map I am sure the Sutro Tunnel would have been a harder sell, given that the investors would not be able to see what Sutro had planned. But the fact that it is not really a new map, just a fancied up version of an older map that was much more interesting to me makes this map a truly false map.

The map I chose is a map depicting France around 1916 during World War I. It shows the front lines as of that time, and shows all of the major roads leading to the various major cities of that time.
First the good parts about this map relating to text. The placement for the most part is excellent because the cartographer for the map placed the text in the appropriate places. Also the text size itself is good in that the main cities are in bold, while the lesser cities are in a smaller font. Then the rivers and other features that are important, but not so much as the roads and cites are in a smaller font than that. What really grabbed me about this map was how well laid out the cities were in the map itself, the names stood out as I was browsing through images. Although the digital copy of the map is in high resolution a person can still see the names of cities and places well. The legibility is what really caught my attention because the words can be seen well on both the light and dark areas. If some of the words are hard to read in the dark areas, though, it is due to the image quality from the site and not the map itself.
It appears to me that someone back in 1916 took their time to construct this map and make it presentable in color and not black and white. The black and white copy of this map does not look as good, but the entire text placement is the same and is still legible. Also the way they make some of hte names of the countries sucha as Holland and France itself appear bent or wavy. This rarely happens now, but is a nice way to add an artistic touch to the map itself that makes it stand out from the other maps in its area.
Over all I believe this is a good map when it somes to Typography. The text is placed i nthe correct spots, it is legible and the cartographer has added an artistic touch by making some of the text bent or wavy. All in all the map is a good representation of what one should look like when relating to Typography.