Welcome to Spatial Awareness, a regular editorial focused on the maps and the spatial community. Each

August 26 · Issue #9 · View online

Welcome to Spatial Awareness, a regular editorial focused on the maps and the spatial community. Each issue I’ll highlight the most interesting and inspiring things that I’ve found — cool demos, new tools, tutorials, beautiful maps, interviews, behind-the-scenes and more. You can find the previous issues here

Has it been two weeks already?! I could have sworn the last issue was sent only a few days ago. Then again, I’ve been moving house the past few weeks so everything feels like a blur. Fortunately we’re in the new house now and things are finally starting to settle down, even if we don’t have a sofa yet… or really much furniture at all for that matter! The new bi-weekly approach has gone down well based on the response to the previous issue, so thanks for telling me what you think. I’ve found it helpful to have this slower schedule, especially as things have been a little crazy lately. I’m hoping to find a nice rhythm with the newsletter over the next few issues now things are calmer. So as always, sit back and join me on this periodic journey through the world of maps. And remember, you can unsubscribe at any point if you’re not finding this useful. One last thing — you can reply directly to me via this email if you have content suggestions, questions, or just want to say hi. Lots of you have done this so far. Don’t be shy! 👋 — Robin Hawkes ( @robhawkes

Maps

Elastic maps elasticterrain.xyz – Share Do you know what would make maps better? If they jiggled and wobbled as you move them around! This is exactly what these elastic maps do, giving elevated areas more elasticity than the lower areas as you move the map around. The result is a slightly bizarre jelly-like effect that enhances the third dimension of the map without resorting to a traditional 3D visualisation.

Landfall — hand-made, physical 3D nautical maps www.landfall.co.uk – Share I stumbled across Landfall a few months ago and have been fascinated by their work ever since. Their speciality is physical 3D topographical reliefs that are painstakingly crafted by hand from nautical charts and Ordnance Survey maps. You can commission them to create a map of (at least) anywhere within the UK.

The White House using LIDAR data twitter.com – Share This visualisation from Scott Reinhard is another great example of LIDAR data being passed through Blender to create a 3D effect using realistic lighting and shadows. There are no 3D building models being used here — the result is created by artificially extruding GeoTIFF elevation data and using that to create the shadows.

Netherlands building ages parallel.co.uk – Share Using an open dataset of building and address data, this interactive 3D map visualises the age of buildings across the Netherlands. The age needs to be taken with a pinch of salt — as it’s been proven to be inconsistent in places — however it seems to give a good indication of historic vs. modern areas.

Have you made an interesting map recently? I’d like to highlight more maps from the subscriber community. Don’t be shy! Either reply to this email or contact me on Twitter

Software and tools

AgentMaps github.com – Share If you’ve ever played Sim City then you’ll be familiar with agent-based simulation in a spatial context, from the individual people all the way down to the energy and water as it flows through the network. AgentMaps is a JavaScript library for both the creation and visualisation of spatial agent-based simulations, allowing you to create a simulation anywhere in the world.

H3: Uber’s hexagonal hierarchical spatial index eng.uber.com – Share While not new, Uber’s H3 spatial index framework is well worth a highlight. Originally created to optimise their ride pricing and dispatch, the hexagonal approach has proven popular and is being used by a variety of other people. The link details how it all works and also provides examples on how to use it for your own projects.

LandViewer now features change detection that runs in-browser geoawesomeness.com – Share It’s now possible to perform change detection analysis of satellite data without leaving your browser through the LandViewer . The new change-detection tool allows you to perform pixel-based comparison between satellite images and do things like outputting the difference between the images (eg. detecting deforestation).

Articles

Mapping all the tunnels under Washington, D.C. www.citylab.com – Share I find subterranean data and maps incredibly interesting for some reason — probably because they’re maps of things that are otherwise invisible. This article on the various tunnels underneath Washington, D.C. delves into just what sort of tunnels exist (and why), as well as how the data was uncovered to produce a series of maps on them.

How geological maps made the Apollo Moon landings worthwhile theconversation.com – Share We’re still not quite done with map-related content about the Moon landings. This time I’m featuring an interesting article on how geological maps were integral in the planning and ultimate success of the Apollo landings and the science that followed.

Stop using zip codes for spatial analysis carto.com – Share In this article, Matt Forrest makes his case for why zip codes are bad for accurate spatial analysis and insight. He delves into the history of the zip code and its quirks — for example that the codes aren’t attached to a geographic area, and that they can overlap, which I didn’t know. He ends the article with suggestions for multiple other methods to use instead of the zip code.

Data

Annotated LIDAR point cloud of Dublin v-sense.scss.tcd.ie – Share The Urban Modelling Group at University College Dublin have captured and released an annotated LIDAR dataset for an area of Dublin. The annotated data is incredibly detailed, down to individual doors and windows in some cases.

NOAA climate and atmospheric data www.ncdc.noaa.gov – Share If you’re interested in weather and atmospheric data then you’ll love the datasets available from NOAA. From weather models, to satellite imagery, to radar data captured during severe weather events.

Events

FOSS4G Bucharest is being live-streamed this week 2019.foss4g.org – Share The Bucharest instalment of FOSS4G is kicking off this week and is packed full of interesting spatial talks. If you’re like me and couldn’t make it then you’ll be glad to hear that the event is being live-streamed and will also be recorded and available to watch after the event is over.

Jobs

GIS Officer — Dartmoor National Park www.dartmoor.gov.uk – Share Dartmoor National Park are looking for someone to join them to oversee everything GIS-related with the national park. They look to be using a variety of open toolsets (eg. QGIS and GDAL) and are therefore looking for someone with experience in that area.

Cartographer — Esri UK & Ireland www.esriuk.com – Share Esri are looking for someone to create immersive and engaging map-based data visualisations that will be seen by millions of people around the world. This looks like a particularly interesting role for one of the most well-known spatial companies in the world. Not one that comes about too often!

Earth observation vacancies (up to 10 posts) pml.ac.uk – Share The Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) Earth Observation Science group are looking for up to 10 people to work on earth observation projects. They’re looking for people with a range of experience, both with and without PhD qualifications.

Web Map Developer — Axis Maps www.axismaps.com – Share Axis Maps are looking for a Web Developer to help bring their maps to life — you’ll be writing the code that powers the maps. They’re looking for someone with experience with React and D3, and the role is remote.

Who to follow

Joshua Stevens (@jscarto) twitter.com – Share You may not already know about Joshua but you’ve probably seen one of his visualisations online or in the news. He works at NASA Earth and is the Data Visualisation and Cartography Lead there. He’s constantly working on and sharing interesting visualisations, some of which I’ve highlighted in this very newsletter.

Who inspires you from the community? I can only highlight the people that I’m aware of, so get in touch if you have someone you admire in the community who deserves some recognition. You can reply to this email or contact me on Twitter

Community space

Map with Me twitter.com – Share Map with Me is a fun tool created by Javier Arce — it’s a way to create maps with your friends and other people online. The code is also open and able to be taken and remixed to create your own version if you’d like.

3 facts, 5 geo people twitter.com – Share Earlier this week I stumbled across the “3 facts, 5 geo people” conversation doing the rounds on Twitter. In it various people within the spatial community have been opening up and sharing some facts about themselves and advice for others. More stuff like this please — I love it when the curtain is lifted and you get to know the people behind your favourite maps.

That's a wrap

So what do you think about this issue? What did you like? What didn’t you like? And how do you feel about the new bi-weekly approach? If you liked it then please click on the thumbs up button below as it helps me work out general sentiment. Plus the feedback helps give me energy to keep this going. Don’t forget to reply to this email if you have any feedback, suggestions for content or just want to say hi. You can also reach me on Twitter , where I’m usually posting all sorts of interesting spatial-related stuff. See you in the next one. 👋

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