Subject
11 entries
Maps
Bookmarks
Topography Explorer: interactive terrain visualization
Topography Explorer is a web tool for visualizing topographic elevation data interactively — browse terrain, contours, and elevation gradients across the globe using open elevation datasets.
Hoodmaps SF
Hoodmaps is a crowd-sourced neighborhood label map where locals annotate city areas with informal descriptors like 'hipsters,' 'rich,' 'suits,' 'tourists,' and 'sketchy.' More useful for understanding a city's cultural geography than official neighborhood boundaries.
Mapbox Series B: Building the Whole Mapping Stack
Mapbox's 2015 Series B announcement — $52.55M to build the full mapping stack from vector tiles to SDK. At the time Mapbox was the most serious challenger to Google Maps for developers who wanted control over map styling and data.
The Rise of OpenStreetMap
The Next Web's 2014 profile of OpenStreetMap's rise as a challenger to Google Maps — covering how volunteer-driven mapping achieved coverage quality sufficient for Foursquare, Apple, and Mapbox to rely on it. A case study in open data displacing a proprietary incumbent.
A Wonderfully Simplified Map of San Francisco's Bicycle Infrastructure
Atlantic Cities piece on a simplified, design-forward map of San Francisco's bicycle infrastructure by John Metcalfe. The map prioritizes wayfinding clarity over geographic accuracy — in the tradition of the London Tube map.
Map Stack by Stamen
Stamen Design's Map Stack tool, which let anyone create beautiful custom map styles by layering and compositing tile layers from different map providers. A 2013 milestone in making professional cartographic design accessible to non-cartographers.
Correlations with Tweet Density
Eric Fischer's Flickr set showing correlations between tweet density and other geographic variables across cities. Part of Fischer's influential 'Geotaggers' World Atlas' series exploring what social media geotag data reveals about urban activity and inequality.
Census Dotmap
Brandon Martin-Anderson's Census Dotmap places one dot per person from the 2010 US Census — a 308 million-dot map that makes population density and racial segregation viscerally visible through visual density alone, without choropleth distortion.
Let's Make a Map
Mike Bostock's tutorial on building geographic maps with D3.js and TopoJSON — from raw Natural Earth shapefiles to rendered SVG maps. The canonical reference for browser-based cartography in 2013.
OldSF: Historical San Francisco Photo Map
OldSF maps historical San Francisco photographs from 1850-2000 by location, letting you explore how any street corner looked across 150 years of the city's history. Saved with the hope of a Street View mashup.
The Amazing iOS 6 Maps: Documenting a Product Failure
The Amazing iOS 6 Maps Tumblr — a crowdsourced documentation of Apple Maps' disastrous 2012 launch, collecting absurd geographic errors, missing landmarks, and distorted 3D renderings. One of the most memorable product failures in Apple's post-Jobs era.