Opinions requested. These terrain things that I've been making lately—are they “maps”? I'm really not sure anymore. I've used a lot of carto tools & knowledge to make them, but are they cartographic in nature? The oblique ones feel more like maps, but does the view angle truly make the difference? - ThreadSky

pinakographos.bsky.social • 92 days ago

Opinions requested. These terrain things that I've been making lately—are they “maps”? I'm really not sure anymore. I've used a lot of carto tools & knowledge to make them, but are they cartographic in nature? The oblique ones feel more like maps, but does the view angle truly make the difference?

1 / 4

Comments

artimaps.bsky.social•92 days ago

Yes. Maps.

upstategis.bsky.social•92 days ago

Well all maps are abstractions, and these are geographic areas and you are using real elevation data to create them so I don’t think there’s any question that they are indeed maps.

Of course there’s no north arrow, scale bar, or legend so from what I hear they actually can’t be maps 🤔😂

jeffgreco.com•92 days ago

Team labels-make-it-a-map

mapbliss.bsky.social•92 days ago

I'm pretty liberal with my definition of what a "map" is usually... that said I don't really feel like the mountain renderings are maps in any practical sense. If they are, then so are all landscape paintings and landscape photographs. The obliques def fit my definition of a map though.

pinakographos.bsky.social•92 days ago

That's sort of how I lean. I mean, if I did a hachure drawing of a lamp, that's not a map, is it? So is a drawing of a peak different? For many, it seems maybe the fact that it's geographic seems to make a difference for them.

mapbliss.bsky.social•92 days ago

Key factors are of course elements of abstraction and representation. But that can't be enough to make it a map just because it's also a geographic place. There is a practical use that has to come along w that. Not sure how to define that aspect though, I don't think it has to be actual navigation..

mapbliss.bsky.social•92 days ago

Maps describe territory, but it can be imaginary territory like a movie map (Andrew DeGraff) or so abstracted as to be practically useless for in the field way finding like Inuit carved maps. Maps are hard!

mxfh.mn•92 days ago

In older printed illustrations they are usually just called „view of“. Or in German “Ansicht”, when from an elevated point of view then Birds Eye View/ Vogelschau”

pinakographos.bsky.social•92 days ago

Several people here & on Mastodon seem to be leaning toward "map" — which is interesting. If I show a Blender view, is that a map? It's an abstracted digital representation, just as the sketch is.

mapbliss.bsky.social•92 days ago

I wonder how much of that is a knee-jerk response to older overly rigid definitions of maps and cartography?

pinakographos.bsky.social•92 days ago

I used to avoid teaching my students a definition of "map," and relied on more of a "know it when I see it" approach. But I might run into other people's definitions if, for example, I tried to enter these into a mapping contest.

aaronkoelker.bsky.social•92 days ago

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and for me it's the usage that decides. I can take a mitten and use it to explain to someone the relative location of a place in Michigan. In that moment it's a map, though we'd never call it one otherwise.

davecsmith.bsky.social•92 days ago

Oh! There's an academic theory about this called genre theory. It basically says that something's genre is defined by how it is used or interpreted in a given context rather than the specifics of its form. So "map" as a genre of graphical communication would work the same way.

aaronkoelker.bsky.social•92 days ago

Interesting, I could see that especially for movies that are so bad they're funny

pinakographos.bsky.social•92 days ago

What an excellent example! Mark Denil has a forthcoming piece in Cartographic Perspectives about map-ness that I maybe should re-read, but it involves context and the perspective of the user in making that distinction.

(Also people in WI try to use their hands as maps, but I think they're wrong)

aaronkoelker.bsky.social•92 days ago

Sounds interesting, I look forward to reading that!

southarrowmaps.co.nz•92 days ago

I think they're in the expansive grey area between 'map' and 'not-map', the borders of which are determined by creator and audience independently.

I personally think that the unlabelled ones are more on the 'not-map' side of the grey area, while the labelled ones are very much on the 'map' side.

pinakographos.bsky.social•92 days ago

That's about where I presently fall, too. Though more people so far seem to lean on the "they're all maps" side, between here and my post on my Mastodon account.

diane.dianeduane.com•92 days ago

Around here, the definition starts with "If you can use the illustration to make your way around the actual piece/area of terrain, then it's a map." ...But whether that definition works for anybody *else?* Big shrug.

pinakographos.bsky.social•92 days ago

Thanks! "What is a map" is a question that seems to have a thousand answers.

P.S. I'm tickled to see you following me! Just re-read Spock's World a few months ago. One of my favorite TOS novels.

diane.dianeduane.com•92 days ago

Aww! Thank you.n☺️

hockeyviz.com•92 days ago

I've developed a heuristic for understanding dataviz (understood in the most general sense that you'll tolerate) as either narrativish (it tells a story) or mappy (it constrains what stories can be told) and that makes me lean towards "yes they are maps".

pinakographos.bsky.social•92 days ago

That's interesting to tie it into narrative-ness. There's been a lot of debate among some corners of the carto-world about whether maps tell stories or not!

hockeyviz.com•92 days ago

We don't attach narrative conventions to maps very often (like where does a map "start", or "middle", or "end"?) but frequently map-makers have an attached story that they want to be able to tell so the ground is constantly being muddied.

paleopixels.bsky.social•92 days ago

Looking great!

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply