What is a Base Map? - Esri Supportdownloads2.esri.com/MappingCenter2007/resources/...Thursday 11 Oct 07 NACIS 2007 1 St Louis, Missouri What is a Base Map? Barbara P. Buttenfield,

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Thursday 11 Oct 07NACIS 2007

St Louis, Missouri1

What is a Base Map?

Barbara P. Buttenfield, CU-Boulder Cynthia A. Brewer, Penn State

Charlie Frye and Aileen Buckley, ESRI

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Funding from ESRI (B6345, B6347) is gratefully acknowledged

I’d like to acknowledge my co-authors (Cindy, Charlie, Aileen) who provided ideas, critique, motivation, and map examples.

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Overview

What this is about…– Variety / diversity of base map functions

proliferating with emerging Internet technologies– Reconsider what people expect in a base map

What this is not about…– Recasting the debate “What is a map?”

AT L3 --- “Reconsider what people expect” … because it’s changing and I think it’s going to continue to change(click!)Let’s not get off track with arguments about what is a map?

Nor about which part is the base map, which is overlay info, etc.These may be interesting but I’m setting my sights in a different direction.

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What was:

Houghton-Mifflin “Education Place”http://www.eduplace.com/ss/maps/

What is:

Google Earthhttp://earth.google.com/

What could base maps become in foreseeable future?

What was a base map (click!) to What is a base map

From paper to electronic media, yes, but more importantly, consider what the base map can “do”:

scale-based feature display (roads and labels)rotate perspective, pan and zoom, fly-throughsposting info with rollovers: notes, images, paths, kml overlays

(Click!)from base map as a receptive container, passive georeferencing mechanism to base map as a provider of map services (here, posting static and dynamic info, distributed sharing, ad-hoc data archival)

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Emphasis on base map functions

Supported map services Compatible w/ other info

other services

Loose coupling w/ other work– NACIS 05 panel “Map in Your Mind”– Recent NACIS Map Design Survey– NACIS 07 panel "How Mapmakers Think"

Buckley, 2007ESRI Mapping Center

Loose coupling means “Let’s re-visit the map during conception and design, but this time, let’s think about base map services, instead of

focusing on content alone”

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Base Map Analogies

An information framework A context for story-telling A starting point for modeling A collection of services

This is not by any means an exhaustive list …

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Analogy 1Base Map as Information Framework

An information framework – Architecture, carpentry– Reference mapping– Pedagogic tools

Microsoft Encartahttp://encarta.msn.com/

This is the analogy closest to traditional perspective of a base map

(Click!) brings in Encarta – talk about functions (pan and zoom, toggle legend, directions)

(Click!) brings in drop down menu

but so much more is possible!

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Alexandria Digital Libraryhttp://clients.alexandria.ucsb.edu/ngda/

Legend info: how many items at each zoom levelwhat sourcesfor some sources, what datesadjust transparency

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National Geographic Expeditions (classroom support) http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/

Functions are similar, just to change the view location and map type drop downs(Click!) to turn on country borders(Click!) to go to detailed level

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Analogy 2Base Map as Context for Story-Telling

Journalistic mapsDocumentariesAtlas mapsTravel diariesFiction

http://mappingcenter.esri.comA page from Atlas of Oregon recreated in ArcMap (Buckley, 2007)

(Click!) an example of an atlas map, whose story involvesseismic activity through time as well as locating the Pacific Rim & Ring of Fire

“service” is that on mapping center you can explore how this map was created

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Some stories are so compelling that simply showing the base map brings the story to mind.

Possibly this is the most elegant use of base maps in a story context.

Base Map Stories

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth(Aster image, Sept 2000)

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth(Aster image, Sept 2005)

Some stories are so compelling that simply showing the base map brings the story to mind. (click!)

(Click!) With regularized data capture by remote sensing, it’s also possible toto add multiple (albeit static) timeframes

Shared base maps of New Orleans captured from multiple agentsASTER (thermal image) – same spatial footprint, different spectral

res’ln (different view)ASTER image 17 days after Katrina, see flooded areas immediately east and

west of the 17th st levee

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National Atlas dynamic mapshttp://www.nationalatlas.gov/dynamic/dyn_zm.html#

Animation has opened a lot of opportunities and roles for base maps in story-telling

1988199119962004

Ask question if reduction in new sightings means zebra mussels have reached habitat limits (by cold temps or arid climate)The fine line between story telling and analysis (modeling)

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Analogy 3Base Map as Starting Point in Modeling

past/future landscapesenvironmental designgeographic processspatiotemporal pattern

Space-Time Prism courtesy Dave Detloff,

CU- Boulder, 2001

Space-time paths in Portland, OR – Mei-po Kwan, Ohio State University

Space-time travel paths (but add publish-and-subscribe functions) that permit scaling up from individual report to community trajectories – a “Wikipedia Time Geography”

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Memphis hub dailyair travel patterns

3:30 AM – FedEx departures

3:00 PM –NW traffic

9:00 AM – FedEx& NW departures

11:00 PM – FedEx returns

Images courtesy of Jochen Wendel

Memphis is an interesting airport – NW hub and FedEx central

Reason this is possible is that the base map has an embedded service – geocoding(address matching)

Jochen’s animation tells a story, certainly, but also permits analysis of a particular type of commerce (in this case, parcel delivery). Refine analytic capabilities, or add a function to toggle visibility to see one or the other or both.

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Boulder Turnpike1:30 pm Tuesday afternoon

Daily decision tool What to wearWhere is … ?Travel Planner

Analogy 4Base Map as a Collection of Services

On babs’ cell phone http://www.weather.com

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Base map as information refiner(y)

“Plastic from petroleum” – add information to original material to increase value

Let users add content. Or services.

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~alew/maps/

Dept Geography, Planning and RecreationNorthern Arizona University

Charlie uses the metaphor of refining petroleum to make plasticrefining petroleum creates a product to serve many more uses than

the raw materialergo, design the base data to nurture refinement in a map sense, that

is,(read it) add info to the base map to increase value overall(Click!)

But what about letting users embed their own content (this is possible now) or add their own services and functions.What form might those services take? COTS?

Goggle api is a start, but we could go so much farther.

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What if the service is map design?

Brewer, Buttenfield, Frye and Acosta ICC Moscow 2007

Another exampleCindy’s and my work the past few years with ESRI – create a multi-scale topographic basemap database

incorporate guidelines about when and how to change symbologygive the database capabilities to offer generalized versions of some

data layers when mapping scale demands it.This is not the same as a Google zoom-in, where images are substituted at a particular viewing scale – it involves selected layers, each simplified to different tolerances, with feature displacement and labels adjusted accordingly.

That functionality is not autonomous as yet, but it’s certainly achievable.

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Summary – What is a Base Map?

Four analogies– Information framework– Story-telling context– To initiate modeling– Collection of basic services

“I need a base map of this place”versus

“I need a base map to provide these services…”

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Summary – what is a base map?

What was: (a document)– Skeletal view of a location– Static, sparse content designed to add on to– Form of the base map constrains final design

What is: (data plus functionality)– Multi-layered, 2D – 4D– Basic functions (pan, zoom, identify)– ‘Advanced’ functions (mash ups, posting)

If you think about it even for a short time, you realize that these functions are quite rudimentary, even crude

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What could a base map become?

Intelligent base maps – Self-describing data and services – Can assimilate new information (not just post it)– Industrialized cataloging/indexing properties

New data models to support data and services– Compatibility (interoperability issues)– Usability issues – Tailoring existing basemap datasets

Self-describing means the base map info can: Guide appropriate use, notify about embedded services, and alert to

limits of the data.One immediate functionality is to embed advanced cataloging

functions s.t. newly assimilated data doesn’t get lost in the archive. For instance, in GoogleMaps – tell me media types, posting dates, source of all items in this view.

So what will it take to create intelligent base maps? (click!)better data models

It’s not a utopic vision, there is work to be done in graphic design, user interface development, and data modeling. There are people in this community and in this audience who are also working towards this goal. And there is every reason to work toward it. As a community.

Thank-you.