aerial – The Map Room

A History of the Harvard University Institute of Geographical Exploration

Jonathan Crowe — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 17:44:21 +0000

“The Harvard University Institute of Geographical Exploration was one of the first and most well-wrought private institutions in aerial photography in the first half of the 20th century. Its short institutional life at Harvard was replete with materials, stories and scandal, and its pieces remain scattered today throughout the Harvard Archives and Libraries system and beyond.” Ana Luiza Nicolae tracks down what records, photos and other materials can still be found on the Harvard campus that once belonged to Alexander H. Rice’s HUIGE, which was not closely affiliated with Harvard’s geography department but was shut down at roughly the same time.

Indian Residential Schools Interactive Map

Jonathan Crowe — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 14:39:06 +0000

Indigenous Services Canada (screenshot)

The Canadian government has launched an interactive map of former Indian residential schools. “The Indian Residential Schools Interactive Map allows users to visualize the location of the 140 former residential school sites recognized in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement as well as provide information on the current status and historical context of the site. The map has a search, filter, measurement and imagery slider to help users with analysis.” The map makes use of historical aerial photography to pinpoint the locations of schools that are no longer standing; many of the sites have since been redeveloped.

The purpose of the map is grim: to determine the potential locations of additional school gravesites. Generations of Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools in Canada: many were subjected to physical and sexual abuse, and thousands died of disease or neglect. In the past few years, unmarked graves have been found at several residential school sites across Canada, and searches are under way at many others. This map makes available to searchers imagery that was otherwise difficult to access. (The imagery is also available as a dataset.) More at the CBC News story.

World War II Aerial Reconnaissance Photos of England

Jonathan Crowe — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 12:32:59 +0000

Historic England has posted some 3,600 aerial images of England, of a collection totalling more than 20,000, taken during World War II by USAAF reconnaissance aircraft. This was done as part of the crews’ training—their job was to collect aerial photos of Nazi Germany and occupied Europe, but they needed to practise first—and as so often happens in history, information collected for one purpose can pay unexpected and unrelated historical dividends: a wealth of aerial imagery from 1943 and 1944. The images are available via this interactive map. [PetaPixel]

Previously: Historic England’s Aerial Photo Explorer.

Historic England’s Aerial Photo Explorer

Jonathan Crowe — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 14:41:21 +0000

Historic England’s new Aerial Photo Explorer allows users access to an archive of some 400,000 digitized aerial photographs taken over the past century. From their announcement: “Aerial imagery provides a fascinating insight into the development and expansion of the nation’s urban centres and changes to the rural landscape. It can also reveal striking discoveries—such as ‘cropmarks’ showing hidden, archaeology beneath the surface.” I notice that it also includes aerial photos of World War II bomb damage.

Mapping Denali in Detail

Jonathan Crowe — Thu, 17 May 2018 22:39:38 +0000

Matt Nolan and his family have created a topographic map of Denali, the highest peak in North America, using a form of stereo photogrammetry Nolan calls fodar: they repeatedly overflew the peak in a small airplane and took photos of the terrain below with a digital SLR. The end result is a 20-cm terrain model they’re touting as the best ever of the mountain, far more detailed than previous maps. Nolan outlines their endeavour in two blog posts: one focusing on the personal, the other on the technical; the latter also has lots of terrain models and comparisons with USGS data.

He’s also running a crowdfunding campaign to underwrite the costs of additional map flights. [WMS]

Daily Overview

Jonathan Crowe — Tue, 06 Feb 2018 13:26:32 +0000

Daily Overview is a website that curates spectacular aerial and satellite imagery. Founded by Benjamin Grant, and inspired by the Overview Effect—”the sensation astronauts have when given the opportunity to look down and view the Earth as a whole,” it’s available in virtually every social media format out there; a book, Overview, came out in October 2016. [WMS]

LIDAR Mapping Reveals a Far Greater Mayan Civilization

Jonathan Crowe — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 23:29:50 +0000

A 2016 aerial survey of ten sites in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve used LIDAR to digitally remove the tree canopy from the landscape, revealing, National Geographic reports, “the ruins of a sprawling pre-Columbian civilization that was far more complex and interconnected than most Maya specialists had supposed”—and one that likely supported a much higher population than previously thought. The survey and its findings are the subject of a documentary special premiering tomorrow on the National Geographic channel. More coverage: CBC News, The New York Times, The Verge, The Washington Post.

Bing Maps Updates Oblique Imagery

Jonathan Crowe — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 16:00:57 +0000

Bing Maps

Bing Maps

Bing Maps is still trucking along, even if Apple and Google take up most of the oxygen in the online mapping space these days. Two weeks ago the Bing Maps team marked the 450th location to receive oblique “Bird’s Eye” imagery. All the cities listed as receiving new oblique imagery are in the United States.

Map Library Finds Site of Bomber Crash

Jonathan Crowe — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 18:34:17 +0000

A fascinating story from the University of Wisconsin—Madison’s Robinson Map Library, in which map and geospatial librarian Jaime Martindale used aerial photos held in the library to help a patron track down the site of a 1966 bomber crash in Sawyer County, Wisconsin. Neat stuff. [History of Cartography Project]

Urban Scratchoff

Jonathan Crowe — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 23:15:08 +0000

Using an interactive interface to compare present-day and historical maps and aerial imagery is done all the time—on this website I use a slider plugin—but Chris Whong’s Urban Scratchoff uses a familiar metaphor to compare present-day aerial images of New York City with imagery from 1924. Give it a try. More on how Chris did it. [via]