Exploring the world of free tools for GIS, GPS, Google Earth, neogeography, and more.
Antipodes Map is as simple a web map as you might want - double-click on a point in the top Google Maps display (or drag the map so that the marker is under the point you want), and a corresponding marker on the exact opposite location in the world (the “antipodes”, or “antipodal location”) will be placed in the bottom Google Maps display. Moving the bottom marker or display has no effect.
Gazetteers are listings of the names, types, and coordinates of both natural and man-made objects. For the US, the US Geological Survey’s Geographical Names Information Service (GNIS) contains name, feature type and position information for over two million geographic features in the US. Feature classes include both man-made (populated place, bridge, canal, etc.) as well as natural features (arch, spring, arroyo, woods). There are a number of similar databases for the rest of the world, like the NGA’s GNS Server, and the GeoNames site.
Another gazetteer website worth a look is SatelliteViews.Net. For geographical subdivisions, they have the US broken down by state, and the rest of the world by country. Select a state or country, then select the type of geographical feature you’re looking for, and get an alphabetical listing of them for that particular region. Select a specific feature, and you’ll get both the coordinates and a Google Maps display with the feature location plotted.
They claim to have 5.9 million worldwide geographic features indexed and linked.
Hat tip to Coy0tea (JG).
The Mapping History site (from the University of Oregon and Universitat Munster) has dozens of static and animated maps illustrating US, European and Latin American history. Examples include “Cotton Production In The South: 1790-1860″; “Peasant Rebellions In Early Modern Europe”; and changes in the political status of South American countries. Some of the animated maps are slider-based (with a play button), and it’s obvious how they work. For other Flash-based maps, you’ll have to click on the map and select “Start” to begin the animation, and select “Key” to bring up the map legend.
If you need a quick rundown of basic information about any country, the World Gazetteer is one option. From the site’s homepage:
Sample maps from the website (for Poland):
If you regularly work with bearing and distance from a coordinate position, you might find Forward/Inverse a useful tool. Just enter the starting position (latitude/longitude), the bearing and distance to the destination, click Calculate, and get the coordinates of the destination:
In this example, the distance is in kilometers, and the bearing in degrees, but you can customize those units: degrees or grads for angle, and a full range of English and metric units for distance. You have the choice of 26 different ellipsoids, and a selectable lat/long format (decimal degrees, DM, DMS).
You can also capture the results in a text file, useful if you have a list of them to calculate. The Cycle option is especially useful in such a case, as it puts the destination coordinates (2nd Station) automatically into the origin coordinates (1st Station). So, you can continually input azimuths and distances, calculate the next destination, make that the new “1st Station” with the Cycle button, and capture all the data for all points in a text file. Finally, if you choose “Inverse” under the Direction menu, you can calculate the azimuth and distance from the 1st station to the second one.
Via Vector One, I discovered Kelso’s Corner, a blog by an award-winning cartographer for the Washington Post; it’s been added to my blogroll at left. In turn, that blog pointed me to Color Oracle, a free Java tool (Windows, Linux and Mac) for evaluating the effects of several kinds of color blindness. I was surprised to learn that 8% of the male population suffers from some variety of color blindness (that’s about 1 out 12), so keeping their limitations in mind is important. Run the program, and it lets you choose between the three most common kinds of color-blindness: Deuteronapia (most common), Protanopia (rare) and Tritanopia (very rare). It changes the coloring of the entire monitor to reflect what it would look like if you had that specific kind of color blindness, and plasters a big label on the screen to let you know which kind of color blindness is being simulated. Click anywhere on the screen to return to normal color. The program also lets you get a screen capture of the color-blind view.
Continue reading ‘Evaluating Map Graphics For Color-Blind Viewers’
I’ve posted previously about Tom Patterson’s shaded relief maps, and he has a new one out. The Physical Map Of The World extends out his earlier Physical Map Of The Coterminous United States to cover the entire globe with shaded relief topography, “natural” colors to represent biomes, and key physical features labeled:
You can view the imagery online in a Zoomify interface, but as with his other imagery, he also provides free downloadable versions of this imagery in CMYK JPEG, and Adobe Illustrator files with the labels and graticule.
Via the always excellent Map Room.
The Map Room posts on the University of Toronto’s efforts to put the three-volume Historical Atlas of Canada in online format; it’s not complete yet, but still worth a look. Maps and graphics don’t appear to be downloadable, but some of the data is (e.g. climatic data). Screen grab:
