The New Golden Age of Cartography (and its Implications for Oil & Gas)

The New Golden Age of Cartography

(and the implications for Oil & Gas)

DENVER PETROLEUM USERS GROUPNovember 10, 2011

Brian TimoneyThe Timoney Group

Chris RiceColorado Cartographics

Intended Takeaways of Talk:

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The web mapping revolution of last six years has ushered in a new golden age of cartography that has now extended to the basemap.

Introduction to mapmaking tools that aren’t GIS toolsa. TileMill cartographic studio

We need to learn from the many failures of web GIS—a. Users crave intuitive simplicityb. Just having a customized basemap with scale-dependent detail is

a useful user experience online and offline

Basemap data available from Open Street Map. a. Free program Maperitive a great way to generate quick

shaded-relief tiles

Oil & Gas industry produces more than its share of ugly maps.Fully-saturated colors hurt everyone’s eyes: consult ColorBrewer

First Golden Age: Dutch, and male

Global basemaps; custom overlays

Too much of a good thing

GIS on the web has been a failure

We in GIS may be slow to embrace the New Golden Age of Cartographydue to the failures of “web GIS”

a. Huge technology footprint (“server” management anyone?)

b. Dominant visual metaphor was desktop GIS, which befuddles non-GIS users

c. Too complex (and often slow) for casual use

d. Let’s be blunt— after 10 years of web GIS and upper-level executives still prefer screen-captures in PowerPoint <fail>

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Cartography as Information Visualization

New Golden Age Cartography Example:

Map of Facebook friend connections

(no other basemap data was used, just geocoded Facebook user locations)

2 salient facts—

a) creator has no formal GIS trainingb) map wasn’t created by standard GIS software but by the open-source statistical software “R”

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In Oil & Gas, the paper map remains the dominant form of cartographic

communication (by far…)

Insert joke about conference attendees swarming the Wood MacKenziebooth for free maps.

In Oil & Gas, maps are both visual information andinterior decorating.

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The New Golden Age of Cartography is about bringing design back to the forefront.

Web mapping without GIS…

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TileMill by MapBox

Project Interface

Function & Form

The tablet, or more specifically the iPad represents a fresh opportunity for web GIS in the Oil & Gas industry, especially in reaching upper management who has neither time nor inclination to deal with the typical over-busy web mapping interface

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Anytime, Anywhere, No Restrictions

A couple of options for mobile

1. New OpenLayers api with mobile touch support

2. Leaflet.js a new free API with mobile support

3. DevelopmentSeed’s MapBox app

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License free basemap data

Where to get license-free basemap data?

Open Street Map

**Many commercial providers don’t allow the downloading of basemap tiles for offline use

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Quick Shaded Relief/OSM TilesMaperitive

Maperitive—

Very handy Windows freeware to generating Open Street Map tiles + elevation contours + hillshading

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If ArcMap is where you do all of your cartography, Arc2Earth is a great extension that enables export to all sorts of web-friendly formats including MBTiles.

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Beware the frustration of different tiling schemes

Oil & Gas industry makes

too many ugly maps

Combat the Ugly in your everyday maps—

get smarter about color

De-saturate your yellows, reds, & greens

using ColorBrewer as a guide

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Choose better color schemes with ColorBrewer.org

Contacts:

Brian Timoneybrian@thetimoneygroup.comTwitter: @briantimoney

Chris Ricechris.rice@colocarto.comTwitter: @colocarto

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