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GEO 109: Digital Mapping
uky-gis.github.io/geo109

GEO 109

Digital Mapping

With a distinct Kentucky flavor

Introductions

Instructor

Boyd Shearer

Contact information in the syllabus

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 🔗

Lab in basement

It's near Starbucks!

Our Tools

Is this a map?

The other brain.

Greatest invention ever?

Is it observable? Yes!

Physical fiber-optic connections.

The blue dot.

What gives us our location?

Location sensors (GPS) + internet 🤯

What if you didn't have these?

Can you read a map?

Which way is north in this room?

What if maps didn't exist?

Not just data, but the concept of maps?

How would you get around town?

How would you know what town you're in?

Cross an ocean?

Maps give you superpowers 🐉

to draw invisible lines on Earth. 🔗

You will make maps.

What helps me teach

MAPPING?

Make maps

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 arches
Measuring bridges

With a lidar scanner on your phone!

Current research

Topography

place description

How will this course be taught?

As the creator's journey.

Question

Observe

Analyze

Visualize

Persuade

Critique

Syllabus 🔗

Tasks 🔗

Questions?

Falling in 💖 with maps

What is a map?

Ok, now continue...

Is a globe a map?

Advantages and disadvantages?

Maps lie

be skeptical.

Families of maps

Reference maps

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🔗

Are these maps?

🔗

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.

A cartographer renders maps

Maps are

"graphic representations that facilitate a spatial understanding of things, concepts, conditions, processes, or events"
–Harley and Woodward, 1987

SPACE

PLACE ⬅ SPACE

(meat)space

"everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things."
–Tobler's First Law of Geography, 1970

(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?