The study and practice of making maps.
124
votes
38answers
19k views
Examples of Beautiful Maps
Often times when we make maps it is based on our subjective interpretation of what is aesthetically pleasing. I would like if people posted examples of beautiful maps, displaying any phenomena in any ...
56
votes
11answers
2k views
Colour blind cartography
Depending on what you read, 7 to 15% of the general population has some form of colour blindness. That's a significant amount of people. Do you try to account for this in your map designs? If so, how? ...
52
votes
11answers
8k views
Examples of badly designed maps
A poorly designed map can not only look visually unappealing, but can convey the wrong message, which could lead to bad decisions being made.
I would like to ask people to post examples (that are in ...
40
votes
8answers
1k views
One dimensional map of the world?
Bit of a strange question but hope this is OK to ask here.
Has anyone heard of a '1-dimensional' projection of the world map - that is mapping all the points on the globe to a single line?
I was ...
30
votes
14answers
2k views
Is there any experience using Computer Games to display GIS data?
besides being a GIS use I'm a big computer game fan.
Games like Civilization, Minecraft, World at War and many others have a very powerfull engine to display huge maps in a beutifull way. I was ...
30
votes
4answers
3k views
Why has Web Mercator (auxiliary sphere) become the web map standard?
I understand what the difference is between the Web Mercator projection and Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere (WMAS). I also understand that both Google and Esri have adopted this projection as their ...
27
votes
4answers
2k views
GIS professionals working from home?
How many of you out there work from home? What kind of company / organization do you work for (private, government, municipal, institution..?). How did you convince your employer it was a good idea? ...
22
votes
7answers
1k views
Examples of geovisualizations of global connectivity
I stumbled upon interesting visualization of global connectivity patterns:
'Major road and rail networks in Africa, along with transmission line
and underwater cable data.'
(Source, more ...
22
votes
9answers
1k views
Effectively displaying demographic data on a printed map
I would like to plot the following per zone (30 zones total) data on a printable/non interactive map:
Average age
Average household income
Number of households
Population density
Number of people
...
22
votes
2answers
4k views
How to style beautiful road maps with QGIS?
I am trying to design a beautiful map using Qgis. As I'm a software developer not a designer, I was hoping that this will be easy, but it isn't!
There is a similar question here Qgis tutorials and ...
21
votes
4answers
345 views
How to use directional shading on boundaries for cartographic effect?
The attached screenshot of a National Geographic map shows some beautiful directional shading of boundaries. I'm trying to reproduce this sort of shading for a burn perimeter map, as I want to ...
21
votes
5answers
508 views
What are the “must read” academic articles every GIS professional should read?
There was a related question a while back that dealt with the top GIS blogs, but I'm also very interested in "academic" sources of GIS information. I'm currently updating my repository of information ...
20
votes
9answers
1k views
Are North Arrows Pointless?
A recent post on Cartastrophe refers to a "Worldwide Campaign to Eliminate Needless North Arrows."
So when, if ever, are North arrows necessary?
As an interesting aside the concept of North being ...
20
votes
5answers
921 views
How to make beautiful maps in R?
There are quite some nice possibilities to analyse spatial data in R and in the context of my current project I would like to use R more frequently to do that.
Until now I plot my maps with ggplot2 ...
19
votes
8answers
884 views
Good Symbology for Interactive Web Mapping
When a user clicks on a map what should they expect to see? I would say a symbol for where they clicked. A pushpin seems to be the most accepted icon for generic data. Google has pushed the upside ...
19
votes
10answers
1k views
Good websites for map-lovers?
Do you know some good websites for map-lovers?
I often visit strange-maps, cool-maps, makingmaps and hipkiss.org.
Do you know others?
19
votes
6answers
475 views
Open access repository of general GIS spatial data?
As a newcomer to using GIS for research, I am wondering if there are online repositories for spatial data, similar to package repositories for Linux distributions.
For instance, I would be able to ...
19
votes
9answers
1k views
Discontinuous or Interrupted map projections?
Do any of the current open source GIS softwares support discontinous projection systems? E.g. sinusoidal, dymaxion, butterfly, etc? If not, are there any affordable commercial ones that do (affordable ...
19
votes
2answers
505 views
Can I reproduce this classic cartographic hillshade relief effect (hachures) electronically using modern DEM data?
I own a number of old cetral-European maps and I always liked the classic hand-drawn cartographic hillshade relief presentation that these maps feature. I am not wanting to reproduce the shading ...
19
votes
2answers
645 views
Color polygons so each is distinct from its neighbors
I'm using ArcGIS 10, and I have a layers of 2010 Census blocks, block groups, and tracts. There are thousands of polygons in these layers. I want to color them so that each is distinct from its ...
18
votes
3answers
2k views
How to hide “internal” polygon boundaries?
We've been scratching our heads over how to tackle this for some time, and are no more illuminated than when we started. I hope you can help. Our task is thus: how to draw a lake with a solid outer ...
18
votes
1answer
205 views
What User Testing techniques do you use?
In producing dynamic maps for students/users I have found the time invested in user testing well worth it. I use a varient of think aloud protocol called hallway testing. I grab any 2 or 3 likely ...
17
votes
3answers
381 views
How much Water on Earth(USGS) : A Wrong Map representation?
I happened to read a USGS article, How much water is there on, in, and above the Earth? showing a representation of all the water(which includes water from Oceans, Seas,Bays,Ice caps, Glaciers, ...
16
votes
6answers
803 views
What's the most promising application (use) of OpenStreetMap data?
In some areas OSM data is very complete and has a level of detail not seen in closed data sources. Another distinguishing factor is that it contains the knowledge of the people who live in that areas. ...
16
votes
3answers
537 views
Why do we use the terms “longitude” and “latitude” for a spherical body?
To specify a geographic coordinate we use the terms “longitude” and “latitude”. Far as I know, these terms derive from the Latin latitudo (=
breadth) and longitudo (= length). In German we use the ...
14
votes
4answers
3k views
How to produce a better inset map?
Attached is an example of a generic inset map designed in ArcMap 10. For all the wonderful things that this software can accomplish, there has to be a more sophisticated way to produce better looking ...
14
votes
3answers
334 views
Are there any books about the psychology of cartography?
I have the daunting task to do a seminar about the psychology of cartography. I have zero training in this field and would like to ask if anyone has ever tackled this angle?...I would like to ...
14
votes
4answers
475 views
Fitting a word/tag cloud into geographic boundaries
Are there any available tools or a recommend methods for displaying a tag or word cloud (also know as wordle) onto a world map, much like in this example: Map: United States of surnames? (There may be ...
13
votes
8answers
585 views
any good blogs about digital cartography?
I´m looking for blogs or good websites about digital/web cartography...i´m not really interested in the deep technical ramblings (i´ve the forum lists for that) but rather inspirational blogs which ...
13
votes
7answers
2k views
Is it easy to digitize in ArcGIS using the Wacom tablet?
I do just enough digitizing (and touching up/ drawing when post-processing) to perhaps warrant the purchase of a Wacom tablet. Just wondering how well it plays with ArcGIS. What are your experiences? ...
13
votes
7answers
2k views
How to create a trade flow map in Arcgis or any free software
I am trying to represent trade flows on a world map where the size and direction of arrows indicate the exports/imports of a given country.
This type of map is commonly found in magazines and ...
13
votes
13answers
3k views
Alternative cartographic software programs?
I am looking for an alternative software product for cartography other than ArcGIS and Adobe Illustrator. The graphic quality in ArcGIS outputs is substantially poor when compared to outputs in ...
13
votes
2answers
283 views
Opensource solutions for finishing maps
After seeing the $600 price tag for Adobe Illustrator, I am especially interested in learning open source solutions for finishing maps created in a GIS. What open source, or commonly available, ...
13
votes
5answers
1k views
Rendering overlapping lines
I am making a map containing information about public transportation: busses, trams, etc. The map will have a layer containing for example the tram lines. Each line has its own colour, and is ...
13
votes
2answers
622 views
How to represent overlapping lines in ArcGIS 10.1?
I have lots of lines (in one feature class) which share the same location but I want to represent them as lines that are next to each other because they have different properties (different OWNERS).
...
12
votes
4answers
747 views
Is there a name for deformation-based maps?
I have already seen maps using deformation to visualize information. For example, this map shows temporal distance between some French cities when traveling by train:
Is there a name for this kind ...
12
votes
3answers
2k views
How to speed-up Dynamic Map services?
I am working on a ESRI Flex based application that will display data from a Dynamic Map Service. It need to be Dynamic, since the end user should have the option to turn on & off layers. This is ...
11
votes
7answers
1k views
Color palette conventions
I wonder if there is a "unified" source for map color conventions, that GIS map builders are encouraged to follow?
EDIT
To clear up my question a bit. I'm more interested in the color <-with ...
11
votes
7answers
2k views
How to obtain overlapping semi-transparent circles effect?
I have been trying to obtain the following markers effect. How can I do the same in ArcGIS (or any free software)? This image is from a book.
11
votes
4answers
468 views
What resources can you suggest for making beautiful online Maps or Mapping applications?
As a GIS developer, my design skills are rather limited. Are there any links, books or resources, that you would suggest to make my online maps more pleasing and beautiful?
11
votes
2answers
211 views
How to improve cartographic visualization of overlapping polygons?
I need some advice about how to improve the visualization of cartographic information.
User can select different species and the webmapping app shows its geographical distribution (polygonal degree ...
11
votes
1answer
357 views
Is there a “correct” way to order legend items (high-low or low-high)?
When you symbolise a layer in ArcMap, the symbols are ordered from low value to high value by default. Is that necessarily "correct"?
I've never officially studied cartography - is there a convention ...
10
votes
2answers
178 views
How thick in ground units is this line on a printed map?
Sometimes in discussing how accurate this that or the other thing needs to be someone will make the observation that "a line shift of 30m at 1:1million scale is less the width of the line itself when ...
10
votes
3answers
648 views
Crime mapping symbology
Are there any standard, publicly available symbol sets for crime mapping? What are their intended applications and their strengths and weaknesses?
10
votes
5answers
602 views
How to implement value-by-alpha map in GIS?
I've been doing some background reading about cartograms recently and stumbled upon interesting alternative - value-by-alpha maps.
Concept is described in more details here and full paper is ...
10
votes
3answers
250 views
What's the convention for “upside down” labels?
I have line features that are to be used for labels. These lines are correctly oriented(rotated) and positioned such that text placed on them should give a good cartographic output.
Compare the below ...
10
votes
2answers
1k views
polymaps & poly… polygons
I've been playing with Bing Maps + Polymaps recently.
It has become apparent that Bing is the only mapping resource available to Polymaps that includes satellite imagery. Is this true?
I am trying ...
10
votes
4answers
559 views
How can I generate a high resolution rendering of the globe?
I am building an ANSI E poster size map collection and would like to add a nice rendering of the globe to the maps indicating the approximate position of the region on the globe.
The problem is that ...
10
votes
1answer
435 views
Polygon gradient fills / tint bands in QGIS
Is it possible to use a gradient fill on a polygon in QGIS?
I would like to have my polygons with a colour at the edges, fading to clear/white as it moves away from the edge. The majority of the ...
10
votes
4answers
386 views
How to colour polygons with a completely transparent fill using MapServer?
Is it possible to fill polygons so that they are completely transparent in MapServer? I want to have a black background that is slightly opaque, and wherever there is a polygon I want that to be ...
