prosthetic knowledge

Laser Cut Street Map Videos 

CutMaps is an Etsy store which creates intricate mountable street maps cut from boards and framed. Here are two videos showing the process in action:

Cut Maps are laser cut street maps of the world’s most famous and recognizable cities. These maps are cut from high quality recycled mounting board and framed. You may choose any color combination you wish.

More at CutMaps here

Blinking Cities by Instant Hutong 

Ongoing project uses urban geographic information as a creative colourful grammar and highlight the changing forms of these places:

Blinking City is a project investigating the inadequacy of traditional maps for city environments characterized by fast pace transformation and urban growth. As soon as the map is done, the city it describes has already gone. We transferredone of the Blinking City pattern, based on a collage of several Hutongneighbourhoods of Beijing, onto a wall of a dilapidated courtyard house inXianyukou district, located in the core of the city

Currently, there are three forms of this project, graffiti, lenticular animated disks, and an animation, embedded below:

BLINKING CITY [ animation ] from instanthutong on Vimeo.

You can find out more about the project here, here, and here.

PS - The Gifs above are not my own, and should be credited to the artist.

World Map Of The Physical Internet 

Where all the fiber-optic cables connect in the real world, put together by Nicolas Rapp:

If the internet is a global phenomenon, it’s because there are fiber-optic cables underneath the ocean. Light goes in on one shore and comes out the other, making these tubes the fundamental conduit of information throughout the global village. To make the light travel enormous distances, thousands of volts of electricity are sent through the cable’s copper sleeve to power repeaters, each the size and roughly the shape of a 600-pound bluefin tuna.Once a cable reaches a coast, it enters a building known as a “landing station” that receives and transmits the flashes of light sent across the water. The fiber-optic lines then connect to key hubs, known as “Internet exchange points,” which, for the most part, follow geography and population.

Interestingly, one of the highest congregation of cable points are in Manhattan.

More info here - Hi Res version of World Map here

London Overland 

GPS Drawing project by Jeremy Wood is a map of London created from excursions over the city, presented in the Underground map style. Part of the ‘Mind the Map’ exhibition at the London Transport Museum.

Documentation of the project can be found on Jeremy’s website here

Mapply 

New 3D maps platform hopes to make them more fun - the areas look like a computer game (and I hear that gamification is what will potentially make it differ from it’s competitors).

It is still in early Alpha, and restricted to London UK (and renders in Flash which might cause some instability), but certainly has potential.

You can try out Mapply here

Woodcut Maps 

Service which creates handcrafted wood-inlay displays based on custom Google Maps locations:

Choose a Location

Frame a composition around any special spot in the world, just as if you were taking a photo.

Select Materials

We offer a wide selection of exotic hardwoods, previewable through our online design tool. Each map has a totally unique pattern of wood grain.

Receive Your Map

Two weeks later, a hand-crafted wood-inlay map of your own design arrives at your home for hanging or framing.

You can check out the service and see your choice of area rendered in different woods here

Stamen Maps 

Unique map tiles renders Open Streetmap geographic information in different visually-appealing styles, such as Toner (top, my favorite) and Watercolour (bottom), all CC licenced:

For over a decade, Stamen has been exploring cartography with our clients and in research. These three maps are presented here for your enjoyment and use wherever you display OpenStreetMap data.

Toner

These high-contrast B+W (black and white) maps are featured in our Dotspotting project. They are perfect for data mashups and exploring river meanders and coastal zones. Available in three flavors: normal, no labels, only labels.

Terrain (US Only)

Orient yourself with our terrain maps, featuring hill shading and natural vegetation colors. These maps showcase advanced labeling and linework generalization of dual-carriageway roads. Terrain was developed in collaboration with Gem Spear and Nelson Minar.

Watercolor

Reminiscent of hand drawn maps, our watercolor maps apply raster effect area washes and organic edges over a paper texture to add warm pop to any map. Watercolor was inspired by the Bicycle Portraits project. Thanks to Cassidy Curtis for his early advice.

Link

Lu Xinjian: City DNA 

First of two posts looking at the work of artist Lu Xinjan from Shanghai.

Lu creates works based on abstract arrangements of symbols aesthetically, which are actually based on information and reality. In the City DNA series, maps of famous cities from around the world are codified with Lu’s unique design grammar.

You can check out all of Lu’s current collection of the ongoing series here

Next post on the artist’s work: Invisible Poems

YOU ARE HERE

Customized maps with screen-printed overlay indicating your location.

Hand screen printed posters titled ‘You are Here’. Using old and new maps, the desired location is centered and screen printed, offering unique and varied designs.

To purchase your own bespoke print buy it here

More photos of process and examples can be found at Matt MacGregorglen’s website, where you can order your own

Streetview Stereographic

Shader Toy + Google Map + Panoramic Explorer

Converts Google Maps Streetview images into interesting panoramic fisheye views. You can experiment with this anywhere there is Streetview data.

Probably the best way to waste your day …

Try it out here

Great Britain. Her natural and industrial resources

Infographic map of Great Britain made in late 1930s, at Boston Public Library:

Title: Great Britain. Her natural and industrial resources

Created/Published: New York City : Distributed by the British Information Services, an agency of the British Government

Date issued: 1939-1945 (approximate)

Physical description: 1 print (poster) : color

Summary: Map of Great Britain’s resources.

Genre: Travel posters; Prints; Maps

Notes: Title from item.

Location: Boston Public Library, Print Department

Rights: Rights status not evaluated

[Link]

Old 3D Maps Of New York

Codex 99 continues it’s historical look of New York maps with a collection which adds an extra dimension.

Much more can be found here

GAME BOY CAMERA SPOTMAP by Jeremy Wood

An early project of Jeremy Wood from 2001, utilizing the Gameboy Camera and a GPS receiver.

The Brighton and Hove spotmap was my first website; it’s an early example of an interactive map on the Internet. The map was online for about two years until 2002 and was accessed just 4684 times predominantly by users of Windows 98. In June 2011 spotmap was excavated from the depths of an old hard disk and polished up to ensure the links were in good working order. It’s almost exactly as it was in 2001.

http://www.jeremywood.net/spotmap.html

Top 10 Tips for Personal Cartography by artist Jeremy Wood (via Warwick University’s Knowledge Center)

It is now easier than ever to record and visualise personal GPS data. Here are some top tips for total beginners who are keen to get mapping. If you already have experience of personal cartography then we would love to hear what tips we may have missed.

Full list of ten here

Flickr Shapes

Map created from geotag information from Flickr photos.

Interactive map can be found here.

More information about this project can be found here.