John Nelson’s One Style to Rule Them All is an ArcGIS Pro map style that applies fantasy map design elements to real-world geographic data. It does something similar to his earlier (2018) map style, My Precious (described here) only differently and with fewer assets (and 1/60th the download size). John has examples and links to a four-part video tutorial at this ArcGIS Blog post.

Previously: Maps Middle-earth Style: By Hand and by ArcGIS.

As John Nelson promised last September, with the release of ArcGIS Pro 2.5, the popular and viral Spilhaus projection is now available in ArcGIS Pro.

John Nelson reports that the Spilhaus projection will be supported in the next version of ArcGIS—version 2.5, to be released in a few months. This odd projection, which centres Antarctica on a world map showing the oceans as a single, uninterrupted body of water; went viral last year. Requests for ArcGIS support soon followed. Thing is, ArcGIS support requires the math behind the projection: figuring out that math took some sleuthing. The Spilhaus is, it turns out, basically an oblique aspect of the Adams World in a Square II projection.

Previously: About the Spilhaus Projection.

It looks like every map style is doomed to be replicated in ArcGIS Pro. See, for example, Warren Davidson’s Vintage Road Atlas: which renders Toronto and its surrounding area in the style of a 1950s tourist map. It’s double-sided and is designed to be folded (which is to say that there are some upside-down bits). The ArcGIS Pro style—which is called Are We There Yet? and can be downloaded here—even simulates the creases and weathering of an old folded map, though it does so a little too regularly if you look closely. (Also there are some inconsistencies in road lines and highway markers: the map is prisoner of its data.)

Previously: Mapping with Style; Maps Middle-earth Style: By Hand and by ArcGIS.

Previously: Maps Middle-earth Style: By Hand and by ArcGIS.

Dan Bell’s career drawing maps of real-world places in the style of maps of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth continues apace; a recent piece, a map of San Francisco, got written up in the San Francisco Chronicle, and his website is full of other recent works.

But computer mapping may be about to overtake hand-drawn illustration. John M. Nelson has created an ArcGIS style that does the very thing Dan Bell does by hand: emulate the maps of Middle-earth executed by Christopher Tolkien and Pauline Baynes. The style is called, naturally, My Precious: John explains it here and here, and demonstrates the style with this map of the Americas.

There are, of course, some flaws in this method: a mechanical representation of a hand-drawn style risks falling into the uncanny valley’s cartographic equivalent, especially when mountain and forest signs are clone-stamped over large areas. And to be honest I’m not a fan of the Aniron font: those letterforms were used in the Lord of the Rings movies, but never the books’ maps, and now they’re found on damn near every Tolkien-style map, and we hates it, precious, we hates it forever. But Nelson is basically emulating modern fantasy map practice: modern fantasy maps are invariably done in Illustrator, labels are computer generated rather than hand-drawn, and hill signs are clone stamped. Applying it to real-world maps, and GIS software, is new, but a difference in degree.

Previously: Dan Bell’s ‘Tolkien-Style’ Maps of the Lake District.

John Nelson’s map of tornado migration in the United States, showing the seasonal variations in tornado occurrence, is a master class in data visualization and design—in deciding on the right way to present geographic information. The map combines three styles—impressionistic choropleth, weighted mean centre movement diagram, and small multiple—to present month-by-month information all at once; in the accompanying text (also here), Nelson discusses some of the alternatives he could have chosen instead. And in a separate post he talks about how he made the map. [Esri]

Previously: Mapping Tornado Tracks.

Google Earth Blog reports on the mid-January imagery update for Google Earth.

Google Earth Blog also reports that version 1.0 of ArcGIS Earth is now available. Announced last June and previously available as a series of public betas, ArcGIS Earth appears to be aimed at filling the gap left by Google when Google Earth Enterprise was discontinued last year.

Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, is now in Street View.