NACIS 2019

Drone mapping at The Washington Post
Presenter: Lauren Tierney, The Washington Post
With the emergence of drone technology, journalists are exploring how aerial imagery and photogrammetry can elevate visual storytelling. In April 2018 The Washington Post published "What Remains of Bears Ears" which utilized this technology to model and map areas now excluded from Bears Ears National Monument. This presentation will examine how drone technology was utilized for this and other projects at the Post, how this imagery can be incorporated into maps and visual storytelling, and when it may not be the best way to visualize something.

Cartography for Digital Transit Maps
Presenter: Ryan Crowther, Apple
Transit maps are integral to the urban experience, helping shape the collective understanding of a city. Traditional transit maps are beloved and highly recognizable, but with their static nature they quickly fall out of date and fail to incorporate current and real time information. Conversely, many modern mapping applications seem mechanized, rigid, and impersonal. The Apple Maps Transit feature aims to find a balance between algorithms and hand curation in order to create an advanced yet still iconic and beautiful map. This talk covers the considerations that Cartographers at Apple Maps undertake in creating a thoughtful and useful transit experience.

Another new design for an old map
Presenter: Kenneth Field, Esri
Since Harry Beck's much lauded 1933 map of the London Underground there has been an incessant search for a new way to map its burgeoning growth. The official map has become cluttered. Many alternatives riff off the current map in some way, or recast it according to a specific style, structure or meme. Here, I offer another new design for the old map, throwing off many of Beck's original principles. I've built a new map from scratch using nails and thread! It's not been without criticism which I'll also explore because no map is made in a void.

A New Biomorphic Map of London
Presenter: Erik Steiner, Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, Stanford University
Co-presenter: Nicholas Jenkins, Department of English, Stanford University
This talk focuses on a new map of London's neighborhoods we have created for an exploratory website on historic London. Piccadilly, Charing Cross, The Temple... this effort breathes life into these universally-appreciated districts as cultural and lived geographies whose extents are often invisible on modern maps. Through various data sources, historic research, personal accounts, and imagination, we attempt to give form to these meaningful but mutable and subjective places of the city. The result is something that is part data, part tool and part artwork that marks another waypoint in the humble cartographic journey to discover and represent "place".