The Organic City
The Organic City is an interesting and successful application of community blogging (using WordPress) and flash-based mapping (Worldkit). Created in 2006 by the combined efforts of Seamus Byrne and Sarah Mattern, students in CSU East Bay’s Multimedia Graduate Program.
Organic City is a collaborative digital storyworld centered on the downtown Oakland areas surrounding Lake Merritt. The interactive map is a gateway to location-based stories told by local community members. The map is annotated with storypoints. Roll your mouse over a storypoint to display the title and author of a story. Click on a point to read a story. You can navigate the map using the in (+) and out (-) magnifying glasses and the directional arrows.
Using Storybase Filters
You can also access stories in the storybase by using the filters on this page. You can view stories by genre, title, author, or date. You can also use the search form in the menu bar above to filter the storybase by keywords.
Chesapeake Bay Watershed Web Maps
A classical challenge for the cartographer is how to present and clearly communicate large quantities of information to their intended audience. Web mapping has opened new possibilities for creative solutions, but arguably effective presentation techniques are still few and far between. Watersheds present a perfect example of data intensive landscapes paired with the need to convey vast amounts of information to the general public.
In 2003, Chesapeake Bay “Watershed Profiles” was an effective interactive map for general public exploration. While some may consider it less sophisticated by todays web-map standards, there are features I still love and rarely see incorporated in interactive maps today. For example, as the user drills down, the maps change in detail and scale, and the well selected graphs and charts are automatically updated to reflect the sub-watershed view. Users can navigate among tabs to explore landscape, demographics, water quality, and more. The map view/scale remains consistent when users navigates among the tabs.
Its a good example for creators of interactive maps in which a lot of data need to be conveyed to a public audience.
While the Watershed Profiles is not currently available, I managed to find a screen shot of the site from my own archives.
Thematic Mapping Engine
Thematic Mapping Engine (TME) enables you to visualise global statistics on Google Earth. The primary data source is UNdata.
The engine returns a KMZ file that you can open in Google Earth or download to your computer.
UCL’s Map Tube
MapTube Big Mac Index
MapTube is a free resource for viewing, sharing, mixing and mashing maps online. Created by UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, users can select any number of maps to overlay and view.
Lakeshore Nature Preserve (WI)
Beautiful example of interactivity – clean map interface and intuitive design.
This map was created at the UW-Madison Cartography Lab by Rob Roth, Andy Woodruff, Joel Przybylowski under the supervision of Professor Bill Cronon and Professor Mark Harrower. Melanie McCalmont assisted with info window text and image production. Production: May-November 2006
