Teaching Assistants (TAs)

• Daniel Dilger (003, 006, 007)
  Office: Wed, 1–3pm, WTY B-28B
• K M Nafee (004, 008, 009)
  Office: Wed, 1–3pm, WTY B-28B
• Hans Purisch (001, 002, 005)
  Office: Tues, 11am–1pm, POT 822

Facilities

• Departmental office on 8th floor of Patterson Office Tower (POT)
• Lab in Willy T Young (WTY) B-28B. Schedule 🔗
• Map 🔗

Make maps

• 25+ years designing maps for print and web
• outrageGIS.com

photograph

• a map represents a real place
• with real processes & people.

explore

• new places
• with the chance of being lost.

experiment

• with new tools and methods
• to create a unique style.

& field trips!

• to measure and test our maps.

Measuring bridges

Reference maps

• Selectively document features around us.
• Google Maps 🔗
• USGS TopoView 🔗 This is Stoll Sield in the 1950s
• OpenStreetMap (OSM) 🔗

Thematic maps

• Selectively reveal patterns around us.
• Population density 🔗
• Pudding.cool 🔗
• Congressional districts 🔗

Digital archives of maps

• ExploreUKy 🔗
• DavidRumsey.com (with Imhof as entry point)🔗
• Library of Congress🔗

What is a map?

A map is

• An artistic rendering of Earth (or other celestial spaces).
• A measurement of our environment.
• A tool for remembering the past and navigating the unknown.

Maps are

"graphic representations that facilitate a spatial understanding of things, concepts, conditions, processes, or events"

(meat)space

"everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things."

(cyber)space

• The virtual space created by the internet, e.g. the space I play Doom Eternal Battlemode.
• Not limited by meatspace physics – except by the quality of your internet connection.
• Metaverse (coined in Snow Crash, 1992) promises a more meatspace-like experience in cyberspace.

Digital Mapping

• Digital
  • Computers
  • encode data in binary (0 or 1) digits (aka, bits)
  • and can share exact copies.
  • Capacity to digitize increases, e.g., the first iPhone (2007) had a 2 MP camera with 8 GB of storage.

Digital Mapping

• Digital mapping extends traditional mapping through computers.
• OpenStreetMap (2004), real-time traffic maps (2005), and Google Street View (2007).

Digital twins

• Advances in sensor and data collection technology >create the most detailed digital 3D maps ever created.
• Model environments and train robots.
• When will the digital twin of Earth be in the Metaverse?

Baudrillard's interpretation

People were so obsessed with their representation on the map they let reality fall into ruin.

Final thoughts

• We understand digital mapping to be using a computer (connected to the internet) to make maps. ✅
• We might also imagine digital mapping to be the reinvention of place in cyberspace. 🤔
• What digital maps will you make?