june 2005 archives

Monday, June 27, 2005

Location on your desktop, in your browser, everywhere

Just downloaded Nearby, a FireFox extension! It's based on the Flash photoblog world map. Whenever you get to a web page that has the ICBM-type geotags, the globe on the status bar lights up. You click on it and you're redirected to the Flash photoblog world map, centered at the location of the web page you're visiting, together with a list of nearby web sites (from GeoURL) and pictures from Flickr plotted on the map. At first I thought it was just neat, until I started browsing around on Multimap. The geotags on the Multimap web pages update every time you pan around, so the Nearby extension globe on my status bar lights up all the time. Clicking on it, it takes me to Flash photoblog world map to see pictures of the area on the map. Very impressive!

It reminded me of the Google Maps Widget for Mac OS X Dashboard. For the uninitiated, Dashboard is an application that sits on the desktop and holds various widgets: mini-applications that let you perform common tasks and provide you with fast access to information. The Google Maps Widget provides a simple interface for viewing maps and satellite photos of locations in the States, UK and Canada and small scale mapping and satellite imagery for the rest of the world. It even offers addresses suggestions for unrecognized locations. Geographic searching facilities available on your desktop: that's what I'd call democratisation of cartography.

All this reminded me of MapMemo, another Mac OS application brougt to my attention a few months ago by Alexander Stengel. You can map your files or folders to geographic locations by dragging them to a location on the MapMemo map. Next time you open MapMemo, you simply click on a pushpin on the map to open the associated file or folder. It's a way of spatialising your Finder/Sherlock. These are definitely interesting times for a cartographer like myself.

Friday, June 24, 2005

Why is Google Maps so cool?

The moment I have been waiting for since Google Maps launched in the States and later in the UK, came a few days ago when Google Maps launched its global coverage! Fair enough, no street level mapping (yet?), but satellite imagery is just as cool, really. I guess Google GlobeTrotting is the place to be to get the highlights.

For the Netherlands, you get satellite imagery for most parts, but if you look closer, you do get aerial imagery for large parts of Rotterdam and The Hague. Amsterdam is only covered partially, mainly the northwestern part of the Grachtengordel area. Browsing around the Amsterdam area, the copyright notice changes to incorporate the GeoInformation Group. No Utrecht so far.

Actually, if you still haven't found the Netherlands on Google Maps by now, be advised the labelling software swapped Belgium and the Netherlands. No wonder you're still looking for it...

Coming back to the question why Google Maps is so cool? I am sure it's the smooth interface without the need for plugin technology such as Flash Player or the Adobe SVG Viewer. Also, it makes me feel good that a web veteran such as Google believes in online mapping. Next time I go to a client, I can say Look, even Google see there's a benefit in using maps, why won't you?.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Attending the Where 2.0 conference?

Not only will I spending my holiday in Gainesville (FL), I am also off next monday to the O’Reilly Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco! Having only briefly touched down at Houston airport on my way to Mexico a few years ago, this is going to be my first time in the US, twice in one month!

Before, I had really deliberated attending the OSG’05 conference in Minneapolis that took place earlier this month. But, at the time, I thought going to the States twice in a year was a bit too much. Now, thanks to O’Reilly it's happening anyway: I received a complimentary invitation as a FOO! Really looking forward to the presentations and discussions and meeting other people involved in online mapping. If you are planning to attend Where 2.0 as well or live in San Fransisco, let me know. It'd be nice to meet!

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Mapping the Dutch blogosphere

Noticed the GeoURL button at the bottom of the page yet? Well, GeoURL 2.0 has been back online since February this year, but I only put it there a few days ago. It surely puts that sense of place back into cyberspace. As a plain listing of my neighbours in meatspace just is not my thing, I started looking around for an alternative visualisation of the Dutch blogosphere.

Every now and then Multimap grabs the weblogs.com XML feed and visits each blog looking for geo tags or ICBM header tags and extracts the coordinates where it can. As a result, you can see other weblogs in Utrecht showing as local information when browsing around the Multimap website . Unfortunately, there is no tube here in Utrecht like there is in New York and London to index bloggers by tube stop. However, the Netherlands has a finely grained postcode system. On the Weblogkaart van Nederland, you can browse Dutch weblogs by province and postcode. Simply add your own blog supplying the title, URL and postcode of the address you live at.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Public access to map data

One of the major forces driving collaborative mapping projects, such as London Free Map and GeoSkating, is the lack of free map data in Europe. I mentioned this as a side note in my presentation on collaborative mapping at Cartography 2003, a joint conference of the British Cartographic Society and the Society of Cartographers. Apparently, the idea has stuck with the audience: the programme of this year's SoC Summer School now features two sessions on public access to maps and data!

Speakers in these sessions not only include myself, but also Jo Walsh, Richard Fairhurst and even Ed Parsons, CTO at Ordnance Survey! Anyway, a great excuse for me to visit the UK once again and to talk about cartography and discuss interesting topics with others. Hope to meet you there!

Thursday, June 02, 2005

Holland, can we have your votes, please

“Disappointment” best describes my mood today. Not necessarily about the outcome of the referendum in the Netherlands, but particularly about the cartographic creativity. All in all, this blog is not about politics, but about online mapping.

If the websites of Dutch newspapers feature a map, it isn't but an EPS for print that was converted to a web-friendly file format such as GIF and even JPEG! Trouw, a newspaper that is known for its cartographic expertise, has come up with a choropleth map of the provinces of the Netherlands showing the percentage of Nee-voters spread across 3 classes. A proportional symbol map shows the turnout. The percentage is written inside the symbol to take away the need for a map legend.

Admittedly, Trouw's efforts are much better than the map graphic at the bottom of the Telegraaf homepage. The turnout and the percentage of Ja-voters and Nee-voters are written inside the provinces. A bar chart or even a simple table would have much better conveyed the information. The Telegraaf more or less makes up for it with the choropleth map showing the results per municipality (also on the Volkskrant website). The percentage of Nee-voters is spread across 5 classes, the Ja-voters are one class. It is very interesting to see the top 10 of municipalities with the highest percentage of Ja-voters and Nee-voters.

The municipalities that have the highest percentage of Nee-voters interestingly resembles the pattern of voters for the SGP party. Both patterns show peaks in the municipalities of Tholen, Nieuw-Lekkerland, Staphorst and Urk that have a large orthodox calvinist population. The municipalities that have a high percentage of Ja-voters shows an interesting resemblance to the pattern in the map of average disposable income, both highlighting municipalities like Haren, Rozendaal, Bunnik, Naarden en Bloemendaal.

But, please do use the GIF file format! In areas of solid colour, typical for choropleth maps, the lossy compression of the JPEG file format often introduces artefacts because of dithering. This loss of sharpness is also apparent through the fuzziness introduced in the line-work and lettering. Just compare the choropleth maps on the Telegraaf (JPEG) en Volkskrant (GIF) websites and the differences show clearly.