EarthMapTool

Tools for making new maps of Earth. software and some raw lat-long coordinate databases. Several clever ideas on how to flatten the spherical Earth to flat paper.

See EarthMap for on-line map servers and pre-generated maps.

• UMN MapServer, an Open Source development environment for building spatially-enabled internet applications.

• Wikibooks: Map This!, an open-source GPS navigation application for the Sony PlayStation Portable. (acts as a simple map viewer if no GPS receiver is plugged in).

• "MapCruncher - A seriously cool map mashup creation tool" recommended by Mark Fussell

• 2Tb sattelite image mesh of earth, requires a plugin to work bit it is absolutly amazing! Zoom in anywhere on earth with 30m/pixel resolution http://www.earthetc.com/imagery_list.aspx?ETC_LOCATION_ID=2

• The bottom of every page of http://BookShelved.org/ has a nifty map. How did they do that ?

• Pad++ http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/pad++ 2D, smooth zooming. "zooming 'multiscale interfaces'" "really, really cool" -- Jim Pick

• "tools for making, viewing, and manipulating digital maps" http://linux.dsi.internet2.edu/science/cartography/!INDEX.html (under Linux)

• Cavor geospatial app engine http://sourceforge.net/projects/cavor/ ("Creating A Vision Of Reality") edits and views various sorts of vector files, GIS; related to "Bruce Peren's US Map project".

• The GIS (Geographic Information Systems) FAQ http://www.census.gov/geo/www/faq-index.html

• http://www.eskimo.com/~archer/ has lots of stuff on digital maps (???)

• How to make your own electronic charts by Niels Elgaard Larsen http://www.diku.dk/users/elgaard/eps/help.html describes how to scan in paper charts and use them with EPS, the EPS: The Elgaard Positioning System http://eps.sourceforge.net/ This looks pretty cool. It can use GPS recievers.

• "Semantic Interoperability for Geographic Information Systems" http://ai.bpa.arizona.edu/gis/ Artificial Intelligence Lab, The University of Arizona.

• http://www.gpsy.com/gpsinfo/ points to many internet mapping programs. Maps on CD-ROM & Map Vendors GPS Resellers/vendors GPS Unit Manufacturers GPS Antenna Manufacturers

• gmap is a map viewer http://academy.cas.cz/~gis/ The sources are distributed under General Public License.

• Geography -- Maps, Datums, Waypoint Lists, Map Coverage Information, Formulas, and Related http://joe.mehaffey.com/

• the Society of Cartographers http://www.soc.org.uk/ [FIXME: look for software ... Would they be interested in my sphere-to-plane tesselation ? ] [FIXME: email them my software links ... keep in mind that they are mostly Macintosh-oriented]

• the FreeGIS project: http://freegis.org/

• Free GIS and Mapping Tutorial http://www.mapcruzin.com/

  Free GIS http://www.mapcruzin.com/free_gis.htm

• GIS Information and Education http://www.flagstaff.k12.az.us/mount_elden/images/WwwrootLauf/gis/gis.htm gis software and free GIS data

• MapServer Application Gallery

map software

ready-to-run mapping software; "projections" and other ideas and algorithms that might be useful for mapping software; and (non-image) raw map data.

• Tony Vincent http://www.mpsomaha.org/willow/p5/handhelds/applications/socialstudies.html recommends "CityZen" for PalmOS and "Mapopolis"

• Xtraceroute http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d3august/xt/ "Xtraceroute is a graphical version of the traceroute program, which traces the route your IP packets travel to their destination.

  This version shows that on a rotating globe, as a series of yellow lines between 'sites', shown as small balls of different colors."

• DNS LOC http://www.ckdhr.com/dns-loc/ The DNS LOC (location) resource record ... it allows individual organizations to manage their own latitude and longitude information

• gmap is a map viewer http://academy.cas.cz/~gis/ The sources are distributed under General Public License.

• XASTIR (X Amateur Station Tracking and Information Reporting) http://www.xastir.org/ | http://sourceforge.net/projects/xastir/ "XASTIR is an APRS(TM) program that is Open Source and free to use and pass out to others. It uses GPS tracking/maps and Amateur Radio to convey position reports, messaging, weather, and much more." "XASTIR provides messaging and realtime tracking of stations using map plotting, via radio"

• The GeoCommunity http://www.geocomm.com/ "GIS and mobile industry data, jobs, news, software" links to free map data.

• Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Data http://slashdot.org/science/01/08/03/1239217.shtml [FIXME: so, how do I get this data ?]

• "Map Projections" by John Savard http://plaza.powersurfr.com/jsavard/maps/mapint.htm has source code to a BASIC program that generates many different map projections, using data from the GSHHS data set http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/shorelines/gshhs.html from the U. S. National Geophysical Data Center.

• What is the best way to pixelize a sphere? http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/icosahedron.html

"This web site contains source code and documentation for the method depicted above, which involves inscribing the sphere in a regular icosahedron and then equalizing the pixel areas." [DAV: didn't I calculate that dodecahedron really gave the least distortion ? Did I just flub that back-of-the-envelope calculation ? Or does this really give equivalent ?][FIXME: email] [FIXME: Does that source code, when executed, give exactly the same results listed by Hardin et al ?: ]

• <q>Tables of Spherical Codes with Icosahedral Symmetry: A library of good packings, coverings and maximal volume arrangements of points on the sphere in 3 dimensions having icosahedral symmetry. The number of points ranges from 60 to 78032.</q> by R. H. Hardin, N. J. A. Sloane and W. D. Smith http://www.research.att.com/~njas/icosahedral.codes/ (includes source code) For each of these point listings, if I draw the voroni cell around each of these points (dividing the sphere into little hexagons and pentagons), or simply draw lines between each point and "enough" nearest neigbors until the sphere is divided up into little triangles, those spherical (but nearly flat) polygons become a (nearly ?) regular tiling of the sphere. <p> Todo: use this idea to convert a map of Earth into little tiles (Which source code makes this easier to do ?) ... then what ? Simplest thing to do: Just print out the tiles, and assemble into a nearly-spherical polyhedron. Next-simplest: Print out *several copies* high-resolution version of the tiles, spread them out on my kitchen table, and play with my ideas of tiling the sphere onto the plane, and different ways to flatten pieces of the sphere with little distortion. (In particular, long, narrow slivers flatten with little distortion ...) Perhaps I could come up with a completely different "more accurate" map of the Earth. [FIXME:] <p> [FIXME: Think about extending this to 4 or more dimensions. Would this have any practical use ? ... how about covering the surface of the 4D object "the surface of Earth from 0 A.D. to 2020 A.D.", which is a cylinder in some projections ? Or we could warp it to fit (half of) a hypersphere, where one pole represents the 2 initial humans (Adam and Eve), and we map "time" radially from that pole, such that any one instant is mapped as a 3D sphere, with area proportional to # of humans alive at that instant ]

• Sphere Point Picking (picking random points on the sphere ... without them bunching up at the poles) http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SpherePointPicking.html

• A list of pages concerning the frequent question "How can I arrange N points evenly on a sphere?" http://www.ogre.nu/sphere.htm -- several different definitions of "evenly" give somewhat different arrangements [FIXME: look at this more carefully] mentions

  • Points on a Sphere: optimal arrangements for n circles (of radius r) packed on a sphere with radius 1. (by Erich Friedman) http://www.stetson.edu/~efriedma/ptsphere/ DAV: Of course three of the platonic solids (those made of triangles) are here, plus a bunch of other interesting shapes.

  • Spherical Codes: Nice arrangements of points on a sphere in various dimensions by N. J. A. Sloane http://www.research.att.com/~njas/packings/ which points up to http://www.research.att.com/~njas/index.html#TABLES which in turn points to many "spherical codes" including Spherical Coverings: A library of putatively optimal coverings of the sphere with n equal caps http://www.research.att.com/~njas/coverings/

• http://cartome.org/ ???

• http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?Pyt=Tmap ???

• Geonames http://gnpswww.nima.mil/geonames/GNS/index.jsp ???

• The Tennessee Valley Authority Map Store http://www.tva.gov/orgs/gie/mspage1.htm sells paper and digital maps (unfortunately, no "free digital maps" online).

• TIGER Map Service http://tiger.census.gov/cgi-bin/mapbrowse-tbl | http://tiger.census.gov/ has lots of free raw data.

• NAC info http://www.chem-eng.toronto.edu/~shen |  finger://shen@heat.chem-eng.toronto.edu 

• Dymaxion Map based on a icosahedron (see http://rdrop.com/~cary/html/3d_design.html#synergetics )

• BkmMapViewer http://www.koeln.org/mapview/

• [FIXME: this sounds very similar to the NAG system ...] The Maidenhead Locator System Grid Locators and Grid Squares http://www.amsat.org/amsat/toys/gridconv.html

• TopoZone http://TopoZone.com/ every USGS 1:100,000, 1:63,360, 1:25,000, and 1:24,000 scale topographic map for the entire United States. TopoFactory can make maps with full georeferencing information (world files) for use in mapping, CAD, and GIS software from ESRI, MapInfo, and others.

• http://spatialnews.geocomm.com/ [FIXME: move to a special GIS section ? For people who want to *make* maps, not just view them.]

• "Geography with your Guide Matt Rosenberg" http://geography.about.com/ lots of information, maps, flags, etc. about every country.

• Cartography http://geography.about.com/cs/cartography/ how to make your own maps.

• http://www.nationalgeographic.com/maps/csites/ "The following sites provide useful information on cartography, geographic names databases, government agencies, and map libraries." links to : maps, aerial photographs, map projections,

• http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/links.html weather, earthquates, geography, GIS software, maps...

• http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/courses/remote_sensing/ lists many remote sensing data sources [FIXME: check them out]

• Cartography

• free map software and data at meta.wikimedia: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Maps , http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimaps , http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Map_generator

• The Ghost Blogs of Tibet "Further honors will go to anyone who can write in with more interesting examples of transpositions in the GeoURL data set, or point me to tools that can easily generate inverted-longitude and -latititude maps for countries and regions, to aid in the hunt for phantom blogs."

• Engauge Digitizer free tool to reduce "an image file showing a graph or map, into numbers. The image file can come from a scanner, digital camera or screenshot. The numbers can be read on the screen, and written or copied to a spreadsheet." How does this compare to other vector-tracing tools?

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ToDo: summarize the relevant bits of "Open Maps?" http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/28/2129226

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