Collaborative Cartography

When I think about Collaborative Cartography I think about a collection of ideas to support one main focus. For example, our combined efforts and thoughts on the atlas pages is a great example of Collaborative Cartography. I like how we can post our own thoughts and ideas and people will comment back on how it can be made better or something that is a really good idea. This is sort of like writing a paper and editing that paper using a lot of people to improve it. Over the course of the semester we have participated in an ongoing assignment on our blog sites. This also is a collection of ideas and it to offers a great resource to find out more about others ideas in various cartographic topics. All of this has helped improve the thought process of everyone and it was cool to see others ideas that i did not think about. Basically with collaborative cartography you are tackling the problem from all angles and that helps delete discrepancies.

Mapping Nevada

With the technology that exists today mapping and mapping Nevada have endless possibilities. People have mapped out the road sytems of Nevada. People have mapped the railroads. the mountainous terrain has even been mapped. One area of mapping Nevada still is under the radar and that is the caves of Nevada. there are not many known maps of the underground. I think it would be interesting to make a complete index with full maps of each of the known caves in the state of Nevada. Using todays technology we could have 3-dimensional models of each cave and also paper maps that are complete and accurate. Although cavers are very secretive about the exact locations of caves this would be a great collection for licenced caving clubs to have. This type of map could incorporate google earth pro and could have a flyby over nevada to each of the cave locations. What would be really cool would be fly thoughs of each cave. It would be similar to google pro fly overs. I have become very interested in three dimensional fly overs and fly throughs during this class and this might be something to pursue as a project in the coming semesters.

Virtual Worlds

After spending about two hours on Celestia doing flyby's through the universe i began to think about the geographical applications. This program has a lot of potential in that we soon will be able to see what distant planets look like with great detail. This program offers a lot to everybody. Like myself people can get lost in the universe and never find planet earth again as i did. I had to type in go to Earth and i took a good couple of minutes for the computer to ttravel back to Earth. It was amazing to me that there is a computer program that has much of the entire universe mapped out and named. Each star or planet that i went to had a name. As technology improves we will be able to look at other planets like we look at planet through Google Earth. Space is the final frontier and with the technology of telescope satelites we will be able to explore deep into any galaxcy. Using this kind of technology makes you wonder what the next level will be like.

Very Spacial Games

After playing a few of the geography games like GeoSpy Geography Game i found myself missing a few of these questions and it made me realize that geographical awareness is not very good. I tried the locate this country in Europe portion of the game and I had some trouble with the countries in south east parts of Europe. What i became concerned with was the fact that if I am having trouble with this and I am a geography major what is the knowledge level of your average person on this topic of locating different counties. This game was a little childish and lame but it actually made me think and i think it could be worth the try to sit down and try to remember where different counties are located. these games even though they where a little childish they where a lot of fun to try and see how many questions you could answer correctly. At this same time while having fun and getting a few questions wrong i was able to learn a little more about the locations of countries in Europe. I think that everyone should take a look at these geo-games and see how much they really know.

Mapping Hazards

Mapping hazards can mean so many different things. For example it could deal with mapping volcanic lava flows, areas of high vulnerability for avalanches, violent weather, or earthquakes. As you can see this map which shows the earthquakes that have happened around the globe in the last hour to week. it represents all magnitudes of earthquakes. There are 228 earthquakes that were mapped and plotted onto this map. notice the locations of the earthquakes. Naturally they are located on major plate intersections. Most of which are located on "the ring of fire," a well known area to having seismic activity. Mapping earthquakes is highly scientific study. By mapping out earthquakes you are able to locate the movement of plates. For example, if one earthquake happens and then another theoretically you can predict where the next one might occur. This is similar to a zipper on a coat. as pressure builds it snaps to release and continues in that pattern in a single direction moving along fault lines. granted this is all theoretical but it does tend to occur in this manner. People who map hazards like these have a lot to offer with their studies because if we can count on an earthquakes occuring in certain predicted spots we may be able to save more lives.

Political Cartography

What is political cartography. It can be many different things. The one idea that sticks out in my mind to what political cartography entails is a map showing political boundaries such as the map above. political boundaries are the separation between different states or countries or even continents. The cool thing about political boundaries is there relationship to the physical world. a lot of times political boundaries are determined by rivers or major bodies water or even mountain ranges. This characteristic of political boundaries has it pros and cons but sometimes they are hard to determine. for example, most rivers migrate and if they migrate they may take away land that once was another countries and due to this you can witness conflict. Even in the mountainous regions of India and Nepal you find conflict over land. political boundaries are an important thing in today's society. they have the power to start and end conflict and even prevent conflict.

Another thing to keep in mind is that political cartography can include special interest maps that are trying to show a specific idea like who won what state or even where a specific land owners property ends. So you see political cartography can include ideas from all sorts of fields.

3-dimensional mapping

image1image 2

3D Cartography

This break through in computer technology is one of the greatest advancements in technology because it allows us to view something with great detail. for example when looking at a standard topo map there are topo lines that help you visualize elevation but with a 3D image you can actually see the change as in image 2. This is not the only thing that has benefited from 3d imagery. Cave mapping has taken great use of 3-dimensional mapping as you can see in image 1 above. The survey tools that are used in cave mapping are very sophisticated and really cool to use they are so useful because caves are so much better to view in a 3-dimensional world. Caves are wild and most of the time go off into all directions. the technology that is being used has opened so many more doors for scientist to study caves. This goes for many other fields as well there are 3-dimensional modeling programs that hydrologists, geologists, vulcanologist's and other scientists use to map the worlds wonders in a 3-dimensional world.

old maps and new maps

The old maps and the new maps. As you can see there is a huge difference in detail between these two maps. thats the ability that we have today and they did not have hundreds of years ago. With technology we are able to gather much more detail and present that detail much easier but the old maps were drawn be hand and that is something to be proud about. hand drawn maps have special sense about them. even though old maps do not have the detail that we have today they still were used for the same purpose and they got people to the locations that they wanted to get to.

Maps of the News

This is a map from CBS that displays the 2004 elections. Maps can be a very powerful tool that can help aid in displaying data for the viewer. This map in particular is showing the democratic votes in blue and the republican votes in red. The three dimensional view makes this map stand out even more because you can really see the typicall voting beliefs for the various regions. most two dimensional maps have a hard time at displaying this kind of data. With the 3-D effect you can see the political differences geographically and you can see how much political difference. With maps in the news we are able to see things that may not be easily explained by words. With that it can also be true that maps can be altered to get a desired effect. all these things come in play with maps in the news.

Interactive and Animated Cartography is very interesting and it provides many areas to explore. For example, the map that i have found is a kind of change over time map. it shows the growth of the United States. Animated cartography is relatively new to mapping because it requires the use of a computer. Animations can be very useful to help show anything you want. For example, you could have it show the spread of disease or immigration patters. Animated maps have opened many more doors for cartography as a whole. They have made representation much easier. Animated maps can show a viewer information much quicker than could a non animated map. This animated map of the growth in the US is a fantastic example of displaying the data much easier. It takes one map that flashes a every few seconds and up dates itself to a new year. Without the technology it would take several maps to represent this data.

Interstates the American Icon

The American icon. One may think of the statue of liberty or the site of the World Trade Center, these are American icons and there are many more like it but there is one that people forget that really signifies the American icon. The interstate system in the United states is one of the greatest accomplishments in our counrty. I believe it is an icon that most people take for granted. Most people fail to realize its significants. It is not just miles of asphalt and concrete it is a symbol of the American way of life. It sybolizes freedom. The interstate is a symbol of freedom because it allows each and every citizen and vistor to move across the greatest nation in the world with ease. Not only is the interstate used for travel it is also used for the shipment of goods from one city to another. if it were not for the thousands of shipments on inerstates everyday we would not have the fully stocked shelves at grocery stores. So basically if you can see the significance of the interstate system you can make the conection between a useful tool that is used everyday and Anmerican icon.

Map Fact, Map Fiction
Maps are tool that can help you spacially. they are able to locate you or something specific geographically this can be both real or fantasy. Most people for the most part will use a map often in their lifetime. People can use maps to find their way from one side of the country to the other and some people use maps to locate themselves within a fantasy world. Maps are not limited to the real world they have uses in just about every field you can think of. this is one of the great things about cartography the possibilities are endless in terms of the direction they can lead you. Maps are essensial and it does not make a difference whether or not it is fact or fiction.

CHURCHILL, COUNTY

As you can see in this map of Churchhill County, Nevada it is a simple map that can be used to better understand text and text placement when creating maps. For example, the text for Dixie Valley, NV is in a #3 location for text. This text could be moved to the upper right hand corner which is the ideal #1 spot to place text if the location is completely open, which in this case it is. Now take a look at Cold Springs, Nevada it is located in the #3 placement because of the highway road 722 in the #1 one spot. it could have been placed in the upper left in the #2 spot but it would cause the map to be clutter by the existing text of Wonder, NV. Fernly, NV also falls into this same category because of the boundry line and interstate 80. The towns of Hazen and Fallon are placed correctly based off the theory of placing text on maps. take a look to the right side of the map, there is text stating "to Austin" this text has little meaning because it is dirrectly in between to highways. it is important to be accurate when you place text so you do not confuse the map user. Even though this is a very simple map to use it still can be very useful to help represent the difference between good and poor text placement.