Virtual Worlds

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examples of Virtual SpectatorRaceviewer...3-D Models, race paths, and weather layer

The virtual world that I explored was Volvo’s Virtual Spectator. Virtual Spectator’s Volvo Ocean Race raceviewer allows fans to follow the offshore legs of the Volvo Ocean Yacht Race using, “the most consummate, all-round sailing application that anyone has ever seen” according to the software producer. It is an interactive, 3-D,virtual world that uses GIS technologies like layering of weather over race paths helping to better describe the progression of the Volvo Yacht race.

This is how the software is described:
“This application is a Viewer that lets you watch the entire 2005 -2006 Volvo Ocean Race live on your PC. During the race, data from each yacht is downloaded over the Internet and displayed on a realistic 3D virtual globe, showing you where the competitors are at the moment, where they've been since leaving port, who's leading and other information. You can watch the race right up close, even from the decks of the yachts, or for a broader perspective on the race, you can switch to a satellite view showing the whole earth.
In addition to yacht positions, weather data is downloaded so you can see current weather conditions , including wind, pressure, temperature and clouds. Also, detailed statistics and measurements are available for each yacht - heading, VMG, speed over ground, speed over water, distance to finish, local wind speed and direction, and many more.”

CHECK OUT VIRTUAL SPECTATOR AT THIS LINK:
http://www.virtualspectator.com/index2.html

I downloaded the software but it was for the 2005-2006 race and none of the menus or buttons worked. I think the link to the data must have been broken or they might be working on the 2007-2008 version and stopped supporting the 2005-2006 version. But I did find some example images and screen shots online at their website.
Virtual Spectator also makes 3-D models of golf greens that show how golf balls will react when landing on a green. They make 3-D models of NASCAR and Indy Car race tracks. They also make 3-D models of rugby pitches and soccer fields. I have included some images of the various applications of Virtual Spectator Yacht Raceviewer at the top of the blog.
What I found most interesting was that the raceviewer allowed a user to add layers of data having to do with weather conditions and climatological data such as isobars of pressure, current radar images, precipitation totals and others. You could then track the yacht racers paths and see what kind of weather they might have to interact with ahead in the race.

Mapping Nevada

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Nevada in Shaded Relief---------------------An NDOT water line map

One of the first places to look for information about mapping Nevada would be the Nevada Department of Transportation. NDOT has a map info website that has links to large numbers of maps all about Nevada. There are Nevada quad maps, Nevada state thematic maps, historic Nevada maps, and the list goes on. All map links have associated .pdf pages that allow you to look at the maps in great detail.
There are maps of Nevada Indian reservations and colonies, a map of Nevada’s posted speed limits, a general Nevada map, a Nevada aviation map, and many, many more. Check out the above links to see the described maps.

It is pretty cool to have free access to all these different kinds of reliable and accurate maps created by a state agency. There are undoubtedly many more resources for finding either better or more specific maps of Nevada but they also undoubtedly cost money to get access to. These public sector maps provide basic information about Nevada free of cost.

Very"Spatial" Games

Halo for Xbox is a game that requires navigation through virtual landscapes and an acute spatial awareness and I would consider it to be a “very spatial game.” The levels are outside in forests, deserts, and alien worlds or inside spaceships, alien hideouts, and spacestations. When this game is played in multiplayer mode, each player has the goal of finding and killing the other players before they are killed. To avoid being killed you have to quickly recognize where you are in the game level. You have to associate landmarks you see in the virtual landscape and make-up a sort of mental map of the level. Or, you can cheat and play with the locator map turned on (the map has a north indication as well as a dot to represent where each player is in the level. When you play story mode you have to use landmarks heavliy because you return to check points after dying. The landscape is in some cases designed to be confusing, but a spatially aware player can avoid distraction and get right to the “shoot ‘em up.” This game is played in virtual spaces and places and those environments all have their own spatial components (scale, topography, built envioronments, natural envioronments). The game environment has so many spatial aspects to it. Below are some screen shots:

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Blog Bear 2--Mapping Technology

For this blog entry I found an interesting article from FCW.com by Aliya Sternstein about how remote sensing and other advanced mapping technologies have led to a reduced need for field surveyors in the USGS. The article says that the functions of 400 federal employees at five locations will either be eliminated or transferred to an operations center in Colorado. Employees at the Colorado operations center will provide the bulk of USGS' digital mapping service operations from now on.

USGS spokeswoman Denver Makle said no work has been outsourced yet. "All we are doing at this point is studying our organization and looking at how we can get a more efficient organization based on what our customers' needs are [and] on changes in technology," she said. However, it is evident that new mapping technologies are changing the staffing needs of one of the biggest players in geospatial data, the USGS. In a market that is always changing due to the creation and application of new, advanced mapping technologies, all businesses must stay competitive, and unfortunately that means that some positions change or are no longer required.

This article makes note of the importance of field cartographers by using the example of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005. The article says "during Hurricane Katrina, USGS deployed geographic information systems and field workers to plot coordinates of flood victims' homes. As soon as the maps came off the printer, helicopter pilots grabbed them and ran to their choppers. They rescued thousands of people, including 19 teachers trapped for days on the roof of Chalmette High School in Louisiana."

Blog Bear 1--Political Cartography

Politics seems to have its own brand of cartography that involves the political districting and redistricting of congressional voting districts. This is often called gerrymandering and it is the process in which a voting district is broken up or the physical boundaries of a voting district are changed in order to make it easier for one political party to win future elections. Below are a few examples of gerrymandered voting district maps:

They each show that areas in which the winning party’s constituency is most heavily concentrated get drawn into that party’s district hoping to ensure that party will carry (win) that district in upcoming elections. This can be seen most clearly in the second image. Only certian counties were drawn into the district. This process makes it very difficult for a new party to win in a gerrymandered district, but every so often a new party does win and they redraw, or gerrymander, new districts. In some cases the redrawn boundaries are so specific that they only include certain addresses on a given street. So, if on Elm St., heavily conservative, Republicans live at 2100, 2160, 3300, 3410,…, then only those addresses would be included in a district gerrymandered by a conservative, Republican winning candidate. Gerrymandering is part of the reason that local politics seem so ingrained into a region.

3-D Cartography

The expansion of cartography in to the realm of the third-dimension has been an explosive process. It has led to the development of new ways of understanding the world around us through the application of new types of spatial analysis techniques that would not be possible in two dimensions. Below are some examples of what new 3-D cartography is out there:

Bathymetry
Much of the ocean floor is deep beneath the surface of the water, and is unmapped and unexplored. Bathymetry is the technology that allows the display of the topography of the earth’s underwater surfaces. This is one realm into which 3-D cartography is expanding. Here is a link to learn more about bathymetry

World Wind

3-D Globes
There are several examples of this new 3-D technology (Google Earth and NASA World Wind are two more well known examples). These forms of 3-D cartography are very cool ways of looking at the world and are also very useful tools for cartographers or the general public. I at least know that Google Earth has provided me with many good images to use on posters and GIS projects. Here is a link to a google earth blog that has cool google images. And here is a link to a YOUTUBE trailor that shows features of NASA's World Wind.

Google Earth

Old Map--New Map

Cartography has changed greatly from the times of hand-drawn parchment maps and compass navigation. Historic maps are exceptional examples of hard work and dedication to the art of mapmaking. But they can also help to describe how far cartography has advanced since then. Even within the last decade and a half, the change in cartographic techniques and technology has been dramatic. That is why I want to look at an example of what I would currently consider an old map (a simple Nevada highway map) and compare it to what I would consider a new map (a Google Earth satellite/road hybrid map). Below are examples of these two kinds of maps:

The “old” map is good if all you need to know is which road will take you to which city. It is not a bad map, it just has limited uses. The “new” map provides a better sense of the landscape, and the mixing of satellite imagery with a roads layer on top just looks really cool. The hybrid map shows how far cartographic technology has come. This new mapping technology is so advanced, and yet it can be utilized with a free download to a personal computer.

The Nevada highway map is advanced compared to historic maps, but seems old and out-dated itself when compared to the new technology we have at our disposal in today’s modern cartographic world. Below is an example of a historic map from the UNLV Library website:

This historic map demonstrates how far the other two examples have come in terms of accuracy and applicability, and how far cartography has come in general. Hand-drawn maps are a thing of the past and computer technology has provided the world of cartography with a new pencil and pad of paper (or should I say mylar).