November 2022 – The Map Room

Changing the Cone of Uncertainty

Published on 30 November 2022 by Jonathan Crowe

The cone of uncertainty is a feature of hurricane maps: it shows the potential paths a storm’s centre may take, not the areas at risk when it makes landfall. Not being in the cone does not mean you’re safe: that misunderstanding has the potential to put people at risk. A long piece in today’s Miami Herald reports that changes to the cone may be afoot.

New research from the University of Miami confirms what a lot of emergency managers already knew, that people don’t understand the cone, and the UM experts are working with the National Hurricane Center to reshape it. Meanwhile, one Miami-based TV station, WSVN Channel 7, has already changed the way it displays the cone for storms, starting with Category 1 Hurricane Nicole in November.

Here’s the UM’s news release about that study.

Previously: The Dangers of Hurricane Maps’ Cone of Uncertainty; Rethinking the Cone of Uncertainty.

Part Two of Unfinished London’s Tube Map History

Published on 29 November 202211 July 2023 by Jonathan Crowe

And here’s part two of Jay Foreman’s history of London Tube’s map, which looks at its post-Beck existence and increasing clutter and complication. (To say nothing of Beck’s post-map existence.) Part one is here.

Previously: Unfinished London: History of the Tube Map; Kenneth Field: ‘Dump the Map’; So the Launch of the New Tube Map Seems to Be Going Well; Tube Map Adds Thameslink Stations, Becomes More Even Complicated; Has the Tube Map Become Too Complicated?

The TomTom Maps Platform

Published on 29 November 202230 November 2022 by Jonathan Crowe

Earlier this month, at its investor meeting, TomTom announced that it was launching something called the TomTom Maps Platform. The announcement was, because of where it was made, long on investor-focused jargon: growth, innovation, etc., so it’s not immediately clear what it will mean.

Basically, TomTom is building a map ecosystem that can be built on by developers and businesses: an apparent shot across the bow at the Google Maps ecosystem. And indeed that’s how The Next Web sees it: an attempt to “wrestle control” of digital mapping away from Silicon Valley.

TomTom plans to do so by combining map data from its own data, third-party sources, sensor data, and OpenStreetMap. I’ve been around long enough to know that combining disparate map data sources is neither trivial nor easy. It’s also very labour intensive. TomTom says they’ll be using AI and machine learning to automate that process. It’ll be a real accomplishment if they can make it work. It may actually be a very big deal. I suspect it may also be the only way to make this platform remotely any good and financially viable at the same time.

SuperGPS Promises Ten-Centimetre Accuracy

Published on 24 November 2022 by Jonathan Crowe

It seems to be steam engine time for GPS alternatives. We’ve already seen two proposals that suggest using constellations of low-flying satellites to provide greater accuracy and more resilience against signal blocking than GPS and other orbital navigation systems can provide. Now a research team in the Netherlands is developing a project called SuperGPS, which promises decimetre-level (10 cm) accuracy through the use of terrestrial transmitters connected to a fibre-optic network. They’ve built a working prototype, and published the results in Nature. More at the TU Delft news release.

Previously: Starlink as GPS Alternative; ESA Considering Low-Orbit Satellites to Improve Galileo System.

New Book About Emma Hart Willard

Published on 23 November 2022 by Jonathan Crowe

Book cover: Emma Willard: Maps of History A book about the work of Emma Hart Willard (1787-1870) is coming out this month from Visionary Press. The book, Emma Willard: Maps of History, includes an essay by Susan Schulten (who also edited the book) along with reproductions of Willard’s maps, atlases and time charts (for example, the 1828 set of maps that accompanied her History of the United States, or Republic of America), which proved hugely influential in terms of using maps in pedagogy, as well as historical maps and graphical depictions of time. The book is part of a series, Information Graphic Visionaries, that was the subject of a successful Kickstarter last year. Outside of that crowdfunding campaign, the book can be ordered from the publisher for $95 (it’s on sale right now for $85). [Matthew Edney]

Previously: Emma Willard’s History of the United States; Women in Cartography (Part 3).

New Map Exhibition in Leiden

Published on 23 November 2022 by Jonathan Crowe

“When looking at maps, we should always be mindful of the question: Who is mapping what and for what purpose?” A new exhibition at the Museum Volkskunde in Leiden, in collaboration with Leiden University Libraries, Kaarten: navigeren en manipuleren [Maps: Navigating and Manipulating], which opened last month, gathers together contemporary art and antique maps from their respective collections to explore the question of truth and perspective in maps. One example: a “serio-comic map” from the Crimean war (in Dutch). Another video, also in Dutch. Runs until 29 October 2023. Tickets 15€ or less.

Marie Tharp as Google Doodle

Published on 21 November 202221 November 2022 by Jonathan Crowe

Google Doodle of Marie Tharp (screenshot)

Marie Tharp is the subject of today’s Google Doodle, with an interactive narration of her life story. That story—how Tharp’s pioneering work mapping the ocean floor helped prove the theory of continental drift—is familiar to long-time readers of this blog: this is the 12th post I’ve made about the legendary cartographer. But someone is going to be one of today’s lucky 10,000 because of this, and that’s not a bad thing.

Ortelius was a Google Doodle in May 2018.

Extent of Tongan Eruption Revealed by New Seafloor Maps

Published on 20 November 202221 November 2022 by Jonathan Crowe

Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai 3D bathymetry map — NIWA/Nippon Foundation TESMaP

Scientists have now mapped the seafloor around the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai volcano, and as a result we have learned just how massive the January 2022 eruption was. By comparing their soundings with 2017 data, they determined that at least 9.5 km³ of material was discharged. Debris was found 80 km from the volcano, and the volcano’s caldera has been replaced by a cavern 850 m deep. More from the NIWA media release and from ABC (Australia).

Previously: Remotely Operated Vessel Maps Tonga Caldera.

New Osher Exhibition on Mapping New England’s Textile Industry

Published on 20 November 2022 by Jonathan Crowe

Title image for Industry, Wealth and Labor exhibition (Osher Maps Library)

The Osher Map Library’s latest physical exhibition, Industry, Wealth, and Labor: Mapping New England’s Textile Industry, opened last Thursday. “Inspired by the map library’s recent acquisition of a collection of textile mill insurance plans and historic maps from the American Textile History Museum, this exhibition addresses the temporal, geographic, and demographic components of New England’s cotton textile industry from the early 19th century until the middle of the 20th century.” Free admission; runs until 30 June 2023.

Will Using Fuller’s Projection Get You in Trouble?

Published on 17 November 2022 by Jonathan Crowe

Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion map: is the projection it uses patented, trademarked or copyrighted to the extent that you have to pay a licencing fee or face a lawsuit? Daniel Huffman digs into this very question, which apparently has been circulating around the cartographic world for some time. “Here’s the summary of what I’ve concluded: if you don’t pay a license fee before you publish a map that uses the Fuller projection, you may find yourself hearing from the projection’s ‘owner.’ At the same time, I don’t think that the owner (the Buckminster Fuller Institute) has any rights that would actually hold up in court.”

Immersive View and the Death of Consumer Maps

Published on 15 November 202215 November 2022 by Jonathan Crowe

Pointing to Google Maps and Apple Maps, with their extensive street-level and flyover imagery, James Killick believes that maps for the consumer are moving away from symbolic representation and toward creating digital models of the real world that, he says, are not maps. “It’s all part of a trend, a downward trend in my opinion, that will result demise of consumer maps. Contrary to Beck’s approach to distill reality into its essential essence we’re moving in the opposite direction. [¶] We are instead on a path to the dreaded metaverse, a virtual world where we should all be thankful and glad to wander around as legless avatars with the aspirational goal of reaching social media nirvana. I don’t know about you, but, ugh.” [Lat × Long]

Mark Ovenden’s YouTube Channel Begins with a Look at the Madrid Metro

Published on 11 November 2022 by Jonathan Crowe

Mark Ovenden has launched a YouTube channel focusing on transit map design—which is what you’d expect from the author of Transit Maps of the World (along with other books on transit system design and transport maps: he is by no means a stranger to this blog). It launches today with its first episode, an on-the-ground look at the history of the Madrid metro system and its maps.

Mapping the Shoreline of an Ancient Martian Ocean

Published on 7 November 20227 November 2022 by Jonathan Crowe

3D map showing evidence of ancient Martian shoreline — Benjamin Cardenas/Penn State (Creative Commons)

“A recently released set of topography maps provides new evidence for an ancient northern ocean on Mars. The maps offer the strongest case yet that the planet once experienced sea-level rise consistent with an extended warm and wet climate, not the harsh, frozen landscape that exists today.” Press release, video, article (JGR Planets). [Universe Today]