Tag: visualization

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Bucknell/Local Interest Digital Humanities General GIS GIS in History Map Apps Slideshow

PhillyHistory + augmented reality as a smartphone app

This is the first in a series of posts about several exciting new projects that my old friends and Philly GIS happy hour buddies are up to at Azavea.  The first is funded by an NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant that was awarded to the Philadelphia Department of Records to create a smartphone app that will enable users to view historic photos from PhillyHistory.org draped over the current modern-day landscape.

If the research proved successful, users would be able to point their smartphones, using the camera view, at a building or other location and see historic images of that same location.  The photos would be accompanied by descriptive information from PhillyHistory.org with additional explanatory text provided by local historians.  This combination of technology and history could be a powerful tool for showing the lengthy and interesting history of Philadelphia.

Click here to read more about the project.  Azavea expects to make the app (for iPhones and phones running Android) available as a free download sometime in the next few months.  A white paper about the project will also be released this spring and could hopefully serve as both inspiration and a springboard for faculty and/or student projects at Bucknell (where we have a wealth of historical images and GIS data for Lewisburg). Click here to read a blog post from Azavea Atlas about other examples of the use of augmented reality in cultural institutions.

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Bucknell/Local Interest Environment General GIS GIS in Geology Marcellus Shale Slideshow

NYT map graphic on toxic contamination from natural gas wells

The New York Times has put out a new interactive map graphic that visualizes toxic contamination found in the wastewater from natural gas wells in PA.  The data – from 149 wells – is visualized by the type of contaminant (radium, uranium, gross alpha and benzene) and the amount by which each well exceeded the federal drinking water standard.  Below are some screenshots from the interactive graphic.

Radium contamination:

 

Uranium contamination:

 

Gross alpha contamination:

 

Benzene contamination:

 

 

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Bucknell/Local Interest Digital Humanities Events/Calendar General GIS

Reminder: Margaret Pearce cartography presentation tomorrow, Tues. 3/1

Margaret Pearce, University of Kansas Dept. of Geography, will present a lecture, “Rethink the Reader: Toward Cartographic Design to Engage, Inspire, and Empower” tomorrow (Tues. 3/1) at 4:30 in 221 Coleman Hall.

Dr. Pearce works on cartographic representation of cultural and historical geographies, especially indigenous geographies. Her work stems from, as she describes it, “a love of map design as both a tool for exploring geographical information as well as expressive form for communicating complex geographical ideas, especially ideas about place and experience.” Her work is inspired and influenced by emerging ideas in critical cartography, affective technologies, and Indigenous Studies. She has published in journals such as Cartography and Geographic Information Science, American Indian Culture & Research Journal, and Cartographic Perspectives and has authored a book, Exploring Human Geography with Maps.

Sponsored by L&IT, the Geography Department, and the Bucknell Environmental Center.

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Bucknell/Local Interest Crisis-Mapping Digital Humanities General GIS GIS in Environmental Studies GIS in Geography GIS in History GIS in Humanities GIS in Political Science GIS in Public Health GIS in Sociology Map Apps Slideshow

How big is it really?

Back in December I posted about an NPR story about map scale.  I got so excited about the baseball on the moon map that I neglected to point out the other really interesting link from the story – to the BBC Dimensions website.  Dimensions (or, ‘howbigisitreally’) has a tool that lets you plug in any zip code or location and then choose from a list of events, places or things that you want to superimpose onto your area. See below for a map showing the area that the Guantanamo Bay Naval base would occupy if it was located in Lewisburg. I’ve also included maps showing what the ancient walls of Athens and the Gulf oil spill would look like if superimposed over the Lewisburg area. The Dimensions website has numerous places, events and things to choose from in making your map, including: the war on terror, ancient worlds, the industrial age, space, environmental disasters, depths, cities in history and more.

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Bucknell/Local Interest Digital Humanities Events/Calendar General GIS Slideshow

Upcoming lecture by Margaret Pearce

Tuesday, March 1st @ 4:30pm (Coleman 221)

“Rethink the reader: Toward cartographic design to engage, inspire and empower”

Come hear Margaret Pearce from the University of Kansas talk about map visualization and cartographic design.  Dr. Pearce is a geographer who works on cartographic representation of cultural and historical geographies, especially Indigenous geographies.  Her work is inspired and influenced by emerging ideas in critical cartography, affective technologies, and the focus on place in Indigenous studies.  She has published in journals such as Cartography and Geographic Information Science, American Indian Culture & Research Journal, and Cartographic Perspectives, and has co-authored a book, with O. Dwyer, Exploring Human Geography with Maps.