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Thursday 11 Oct 07NACIS 2007
St Louis, Missouri1
What is a Base Map?
Barbara P. Buttenfield, CU-Boulder Cynthia A. Brewer, Penn State
Charlie Frye and Aileen Buckley, ESRI
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Funding from ESRI (B6345, B6347) is gratefully acknowledged
I’d like to acknowledge my co-authors (Cindy, Charlie, Aileen) who provided ideas, critique, motivation, and map examples.
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Overview
What this is about…– Variety / diversity of base map functions
proliferating with emerging Internet technologies– Reconsider what people expect in a base map
What this is not about…– Recasting the debate “What is a map?”
AT L3 --- “Reconsider what people expect” … because it’s changing and I think it’s going to continue to change(click!)Let’s not get off track with arguments about what is a map?
Nor about which part is the base map, which is overlay info, etc.These may be interesting but I’m setting my sights in a different direction.
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What was:
Houghton-Mifflin “Education Place”http://www.eduplace.com/ss/maps/
What is:
Google Earthhttp://earth.google.com/
What could base maps become in foreseeable future?
What was a base map (click!) to What is a base map
From paper to electronic media, yes, but more importantly, consider what the base map can “do”:
scale-based feature display (roads and labels)rotate perspective, pan and zoom, fly-throughsposting info with rollovers: notes, images, paths, kml overlays
(Click!)from base map as a receptive container, passive georeferencing mechanism to base map as a provider of map services (here, posting static and dynamic info, distributed sharing, ad-hoc data archival)
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Emphasis on base map functions
Supported map services Compatible w/ other info
other services
Loose coupling w/ other work– NACIS 05 panel “Map in Your Mind”– Recent NACIS Map Design Survey– NACIS 07 panel "How Mapmakers Think"
Buckley, 2007ESRI Mapping Center
Loose coupling means “Let’s re-visit the map during conception and design, but this time, let’s think about base map services, instead of
focusing on content alone”
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Base Map Analogies
An information framework A context for story-telling A starting point for modeling A collection of services
This is not by any means an exhaustive list …
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Analogy 1Base Map as Information Framework
An information framework – Architecture, carpentry– Reference mapping– Pedagogic tools
Microsoft Encartahttp://encarta.msn.com/
This is the analogy closest to traditional perspective of a base map
(Click!) brings in Encarta – talk about functions (pan and zoom, toggle legend, directions)
(Click!) brings in drop down menu
but so much more is possible!
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Alexandria Digital Libraryhttp://clients.alexandria.ucsb.edu/ngda/
Legend info: how many items at each zoom levelwhat sourcesfor some sources, what datesadjust transparency
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National Geographic Expeditions (classroom support) http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/
Functions are similar, just to change the view location and map type drop downs(Click!) to turn on country borders(Click!) to go to detailed level
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Analogy 2Base Map as Context for Story-Telling
Journalistic mapsDocumentariesAtlas mapsTravel diariesFiction
http://mappingcenter.esri.comA page from Atlas of Oregon recreated in ArcMap (Buckley, 2007)
(Click!) an example of an atlas map, whose story involvesseismic activity through time as well as locating the Pacific Rim & Ring of Fire
“service” is that on mapping center you can explore how this map was created
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Some stories are so compelling that simply showing the base map brings the story to mind.
Possibly this is the most elegant use of base maps in a story context.
Base Map Stories
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth(Aster image, Sept 2000)
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth(Aster image, Sept 2005)
Some stories are so compelling that simply showing the base map brings the story to mind. (click!)
(Click!) With regularized data capture by remote sensing, it’s also possible toto add multiple (albeit static) timeframes
Shared base maps of New Orleans captured from multiple agentsASTER (thermal image) – same spatial footprint, different spectral
res’ln (different view)ASTER image 17 days after Katrina, see flooded areas immediately east and
west of the 17th st levee
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National Atlas dynamic mapshttp://www.nationalatlas.gov/dynamic/dyn_zm.html#
Animation has opened a lot of opportunities and roles for base maps in story-telling
1988199119962004
Ask question if reduction in new sightings means zebra mussels have reached habitat limits (by cold temps or arid climate)The fine line between story telling and analysis (modeling)
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Analogy 3Base Map as Starting Point in Modeling
past/future landscapesenvironmental designgeographic processspatiotemporal pattern
Space-Time Prism courtesy Dave Detloff,
CU- Boulder, 2001
Space-time paths in Portland, OR – Mei-po Kwan, Ohio State University
Space-time travel paths (but add publish-and-subscribe functions) that permit scaling up from individual report to community trajectories – a “Wikipedia Time Geography”
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Memphis hub dailyair travel patterns
3:30 AM – FedEx departures
3:00 PM –NW traffic
9:00 AM – FedEx& NW departures
11:00 PM – FedEx returns
Images courtesy of Jochen Wendel
Memphis is an interesting airport – NW hub and FedEx central
Reason this is possible is that the base map has an embedded service – geocoding(address matching)
Jochen’s animation tells a story, certainly, but also permits analysis of a particular type of commerce (in this case, parcel delivery). Refine analytic capabilities, or add a function to toggle visibility to see one or the other or both.
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Boulder Turnpike1:30 pm Tuesday afternoon
Daily decision tool What to wearWhere is … ?Travel Planner
Analogy 4Base Map as a Collection of Services
On babs’ cell phone http://www.weather.com
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Base map as information refiner(y)
“Plastic from petroleum” – add information to original material to increase value
Let users add content. Or services.
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~alew/maps/
Dept Geography, Planning and RecreationNorthern Arizona University
Charlie uses the metaphor of refining petroleum to make plasticrefining petroleum creates a product to serve many more uses than
the raw materialergo, design the base data to nurture refinement in a map sense, that
is,(read it) add info to the base map to increase value overall(Click!)
But what about letting users embed their own content (this is possible now) or add their own services and functions.What form might those services take? COTS?
Goggle api is a start, but we could go so much farther.
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What if the service is map design?
Brewer, Buttenfield, Frye and Acosta ICC Moscow 2007
Another exampleCindy’s and my work the past few years with ESRI – create a multi-scale topographic basemap database
incorporate guidelines about when and how to change symbologygive the database capabilities to offer generalized versions of some
data layers when mapping scale demands it.This is not the same as a Google zoom-in, where images are substituted at a particular viewing scale – it involves selected layers, each simplified to different tolerances, with feature displacement and labels adjusted accordingly.
That functionality is not autonomous as yet, but it’s certainly achievable.
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Summary – What is a Base Map?
Four analogies– Information framework– Story-telling context– To initiate modeling– Collection of basic services
“I need a base map of this place”versus
“I need a base map to provide these services…”
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Summary – what is a base map?
What was: (a document)– Skeletal view of a location– Static, sparse content designed to add on to– Form of the base map constrains final design
What is: (data plus functionality)– Multi-layered, 2D – 4D– Basic functions (pan, zoom, identify)– ‘Advanced’ functions (mash ups, posting)
If you think about it even for a short time, you realize that these functions are quite rudimentary, even crude
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What could a base map become?
Intelligent base maps – Self-describing data and services – Can assimilate new information (not just post it)– Industrialized cataloging/indexing properties
New data models to support data and services– Compatibility (interoperability issues)– Usability issues – Tailoring existing basemap datasets
Self-describing means the base map info can: Guide appropriate use, notify about embedded services, and alert to
limits of the data.One immediate functionality is to embed advanced cataloging
functions s.t. newly assimilated data doesn’t get lost in the archive. For instance, in GoogleMaps – tell me media types, posting dates, source of all items in this view.
So what will it take to create intelligent base maps? (click!)better data models
It’s not a utopic vision, there is work to be done in graphic design, user interface development, and data modeling. There are people in this community and in this audience who are also working towards this goal. And there is every reason to work toward it. As a community.
Thank-you.