Tag: Cartographic

1943 – Dymaxion Map & Folding Globe

“Also know as the “Dymaxion Map,” the Fuller Projection Map is the only flat map of the entire surface of the Earth which reveals our planet as one island in one ocean, without any visually obvious distortion of the relative shapes and sizes of the land areas, and without splitting any continents. It was developed by R. Buckminster Fuller. All flat world map representations of the spherical globe contain some amount of distortion either in shape, area, distance or direction […]

Added by: Alex Hughes. Category: Physical model  Tags: Cartographic, Globe, Dymaxion, Buckminster Fuller


1957 – US Army Corps of Engineers San Francisco Bay Model

A working hydrodynamic model of San Francisco Bay and the surrounding waterways, with tides. It is still open to the public as a demonstration, although it is no longer used for research. <em>Source:</em> Wikipedia <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Corps_of_Engineers_Bay_Model">U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Bay Model</a>. Related: Also see our related entry 1949 – Mississippi River Basin Model.



1980 – People on a Giant World Map

The World Game Workshop used a giant (basketball court size) world map to display population growth, distribution, and density, energy use, food and a host of other global variables and problems. 100 people were placed on the map, located where humanity is currently in the world, each one representing 1% of the global population. They were then placed in charge of their region and given the responsibility of solving the world’s problems. Sources: Post by Medard Gabel, Executive Director, […]



2016 – Woven Chronicles

Woven Chronicle is a cartographic wall drawing that, in the artist’s words, represents “the global flows and movements of travelers, migrants, and labor.” Kallat uses electrical wires—some of which are twisted to resemble barbed wire—to create the lines, which are based on her meticulous research of transnational flows. Wire is an evocative and contradictory material: it operates as both a conduit of electricity, used to connect people across vast distances, and as a weaponized obstacle, such […]

Added by: Santiago Ortiz. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: art, cartographic, migration, network, wires


2017 – Fabricating Physical Globe Visualizations

Geospatial datasets are too complex to easily visualize and understand on a computer screen. Combining digital fabrication with a discrete global grid system (DGGS) can produce physical models of the Earth for visualizing multiresolution geospatial datasets. This proposed approach includes a mechanism for attaching a set of 3D printed segments to produce a scalable model of the Earth. Two models have been produced that support the attachment of different datasets both in 2D and 3D format. […]

Added by: Hessam Djavaherpour. Category: Enabling technology  Tags: 3d printing, cartographic, digital fabrication, globe, rearrangeable


2019 – Physical Globe Model of Global Temperature Change

Using open source NASA GISS data, british model maker and designer Matthew Stewart created a sculpture which communicates the temperature rise of the globe compared to 50 years ago. With the data’s lat/long variable, Matthew Stewart represented temperature increase with length of protruding rod – the greater the difference, the longer the rod. Made of 3,204 pieces, assembly had to be perfect to ensure the lattice structure held its form correctly, & so the data was represented accurately. […]

Added by: Anne-Laure Fréant. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: global warming, cartographic, globe, NASA, data sculpture


2019 – Anamorphic Data Spatialization

Data spatialization is a design technique through which data is used to create architectural spaces. It does not necessarily preserve the legibility of the represented data, but rather focuses on the spatial qualities that can be gained from the data. This research aims to introduce a method for the design of a data-driven pavilion that represents data spatially through catoptric (mirror-assisted) anamorphosis. In this work, a set of environmental datasets from North America–including […]

Added by: Hessam Djavaherpour. Category: Active physical visualization  Tags: anamorphosis, cartographic, Pavilion, public


2021 – Map of Corn Production Using Candy Corn

The prompt for the 27th day of the 2021 #30DayMapChallenge was ‘heatmap.’ I looked at corn production in the US - just the lower 48. The data is from USGS and it was made with 3 bags of candy corn. Source: Jill Hubley Related: Also see our other entries on visualizations made of food.

Added by: Jill Hubley. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: cartographic, data cuisine, food, corn


2021 – Watermap: A Physical Live Weather Visualization

Without water, nothing organic exists. This water installation visualizes - symbolically - how rain brings the whole world to life. In a very tangible way of presenting and visualizing data, rain is represented by real drops of water. The installation features a black, wooden pedestal with a recessed world map filled with sand. Technically, the realization is done by a mini-computer, which evaluates live weather data and positions a water tank in an X-Y system above the world map. At places […]

Added by: Daniel Fischer. Category: Active physical visualization  Tags: weather, rain, water, sand, cartographic


2022 – Physical Map of Arctic Sea Ice

Sea ice is frozen ocean water that is most commonly found near the poles in the Arctic Ocean and Southern ocean around Antarctica. Sea ice plays a critical role in regulating the ocean circulation, thereby influencing the global climate. Abnormal melting of sea ice brought forth by warming temperatures leads to changes in global climate making it important to study the fluctuations in the sea ice extant. Scientists use different methods to study sea ice which include observations and climate […]

Added by: Nihanth Cherukuru. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: cartographic, climate change, sea ice, teaching, 3D printing