NACIS 2024

Canyon Cartography
Brandon Plewe, Brigham Young University
Over the years, a great deal of research has been done and dozens of techniques have been developed for portraying the beautiful and rugged landscape of mountains. Much less time has been spent on their counterpart, canyons; especially landscapes that feature rocky cliffs and canyons without mountains, such as the Colorado Plateau in the Southwestern United States. We experimented with existing and new techniques that can be composited to create maps of canyonlands that emphasize their ruggedness and beauty, and help visitors more effectively understand and travel through them.

Natural Scene Designer Pro 8
Tom Patterson, US National Park Service (retired)
Natural Scene Designer 8, due for release this autumn for Mac and Windows, has new features useful to cartographers, including: Download Terrain Models – The following DEMs are available through a map interface: GMTED, SRTM, ALOS, Copernicus, Aster, MERIT, ArcticDEM, and REMA. Resolutions range from 1 to 1,000 meters. NAIP Import – Automatically download, unzip, reproject, resample, and overlay high-resolution aerial images on the current DEM. Texture Shade Blending – Add texture shading to 3D scenes, plan oblique relief, and shaded relief. You can control the amount and characteristics of texture shading, and where it occurs on a terrain.

Displacement Vulnerability and Mitigation Tool
Abigail Fleming, University of Miami
The Environmental Justice Clinic (“EJC”) and the Frost Institute for Data Science & Computing at the University of Miami developed the Displacement Vulnerability and Mitigation Tool (“DVMT”), a three-part, web-based tool that uses data analytics to forecast the risk of displacement a proposed development may cause and equip community stakeholders with research-informed mitigation strategies.

Demystifying Cloud Native Geospatial For Working With Data At Scale
Jia Yu, Wherobots
As data volumes continue to grow in the geospatial world tooling and data formats from the big data ecosystem are being applied to the geospatial world. This enables more distribution and new types of data analysis, yet can be frustrating when trying to integrate with some GIS workflows. In this talk, we'll examine why cloud-native data formats for geospatial are becoming popular and how to work with them by looking at GeoParquet, STAC, Cloud Optimized GeoTiffs, PMTiles, and Apache Sedona.

How to Improve Your GIS to Graphic Design Workflow
Julia Olson and Sarah Bell, Esri
Many cartographers start their maps in a GIS before exporting into a graphic design program. ArcGIS Maps for Adobe Creative Cloud was designed with these mappers in mind. We will share new capabilities as we demonstrate how we created our Pacific Northwest-based map gallery poster using the ArcGIS Pro-to-Adobe Illustrator workflow. Our demo will incorporate Maps for Adobe features, like automatic symbol replacement, automated symbol library creation, well-organized data visualization, vector tile basemaps, and more!

City as Museum: Reimagining Urban Wayfinding and Storytelling
Gurpreet Kaur
The talk explores the concept of a city as a living museum, where each landmark tells a story, turning urban landscapes into engaging narratives that enhance wayfinding. It will showcase how this idea can transform urban exploration, guiding visitors and residents through the city's rich historical and cultural stories via its unique landmarks. An example use case will highlight how users can engage with the city’s stories, making each landmark a portal to the past and a navigation guide in the present.

Globes – an App for the Apple Vision Pro
Evan Thornberry, David Rumsey & Niles Dorn, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries; 
Bernie Jenny, Dilpreet Singh & Kadek Satriadi, Monash University, Melbourne
Globes is a new app for the Apple Vision Pro headset that shows globes at the David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford Libraries. Virtual globes are rendered with unprecedented visual clarity and detail, and they can be freely scaled and positioned. This presentation will demonstrate the features of the Globes app and discuss its development. Additionally, we will explore future applications of augmented reality for visualizing maps and globes, and showcase how tangible globes can be augmented with virtual visualizations.

Creating Thematic Maps with the Help of Generative AI
Kristian Ekenes, Esri
Since OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT nearly two years ago, the number of artificial intelligence assistants has exploded in software applications in almost every industry. We'll explore the role generative AI assistants play in creating thematic maps from an end user's natural language. I’ll describe Esri’s approach in building an AI mapping assistant for ArcGIS Online and summarize findings discovered from user testing, research, and the implications it has on mapping workflows moving forward.

Leveraging a Living Atlas of the World
Emily Meriam, Esri
In 2014 Esri’s ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World (LAW) debuted as a community GIS that allowed for sharing across the world, a new kind of “living atlas” of geographic information. The LAW was designed to provide meaningful access to GIS content openly shared and to be an online catalog of authoritative and best available geographic information from individual organizations, partners, and the global GIS community. In this presentation learn how to use this vast collection of geospatial information for cartographic purposes. The maps shown will be from Esri’s founder Jack Dangermond’s first authored book called The Power of Where.

The Past, Present, and Future of Stamen Maps
Alan McConchie, Stamen Design
A decade ago, Stamen Design launched the Toner, Terrain, and Watercolor map styles built on OpenStreetMap data, which soon became an essential part of the open source mapping ecosystem. Last year we partnered with Stadia Maps to create all new versions of the Toner and Terrain maps, based on a modern mapping stack of vector tiles to keep them running for the next generation. In this presentation, we will discuss the opportunities and challenges of redesigning familiar map styles using a totally new set of tools, while still staying true to the well-loved aesthetics of the original maps.

A User Study of Relief Inversion and a Benefit of Sky Models
Patrick Kennelly, Long Island University; Izabela Gołębiowska, Izabela Karsznia & Katarzyna Borczon, University of Warsaw
Relief inversion, the perception that valleys are ridges and vice versa, can occur with shaded relief maps using southern illumination. While previous user studies have documented this effect and looked at lighting directions to avoid, we study whether inversion can be eliminated using multidirectional sky models. 352 participants were asked to look at shaded relief maps and identify valleys and ridges, compare elevation of points, identify elevation change of slopes, and associate elevation profiles. Results with shaded relief maps illuminated from 1) one direction from NNW 2) sky models from NNW or 3) sky models from SSW show no statistically significant difference, while 4) one direction from SSW led to significantly worse accuracy. Additionally, no difference in response time may indicate users make no attempt to mentally re-invert relief.

Cartographies of Climate Change and Hazardous Waste, A Comparative Analysis
Lucinda Roberts, University of Oregon
As environmental crises escalate, the necessity for precise and actionable maps becomes increasingly critical. However, recent large-scale evaluations of COVID-19 dashboards have highlighted significant gaps in the effectiveness and actionability of online mapping applications. This presentation explores a comparative analysis of cartographic techniques used in visualizing hazardous waste versus climate change. By examining these distinct environmental challenges, we aim to shed light on the crucial role cartographers play in creating data visualizations that are both actionable and interpretable, thereby enhancing decision-making processes in environmental management.

“The Map is Hers”: Gender and Copyright in Early 20th Century Los Angeles
Christina Dando, University of Nebraska Omaha
In the United States, maps and charts have had the possibility of copyright protection since 1783, but not all mapmakers take this step. In Los Angeles in the 1910s, Laura Whitlock, a woman mapmaker, and N. Bowditch Blunt, a draftsman, both copyrighted their maps. Blunt would go on to illegally copy Whitlock’s work and Whitlock sued him for copyright infringement, resulting in a precedent-setting case. Why did they copyright their work? How did they know to take this step? What might copyright have represented to them?

Unearthing Geotechnical Knowledge in the Library
Chris Salvano, LA Metro Transportation Research Library & Archive
Since 1962, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro) has been performing geotechnical studies throughout Los Angeles County to support its subway and light-rail transportation initiatives. Beginning in late 2023, the LA Metro Library began surfacing spatial data from these historical reports and mapping them using GIS. This talk will discuss the library-led initiative to map this data as a means to help answer spatial inquiry-type reference questions, improve discoverability of Metro’s geotechnical knowledge, and better meet the information-seeking behaviors of Metro engineers. New avenues of potential collaboration between the library, the GIS unit, and engineers will also be addressed.

Coloring Outside of the Lines: Sketch Mapping Fear, Safety, and Community for LGBTQ+ Students Amidst Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation
Natalie Correa, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Over 500 state-level bills were introduced in the US that negatively targeted members in the LGBTQ+ community in 2023. I sought to investigate how introduced and passed legislation impacted how college students think about space. I used sketch mapping and interviews to gather student perceptions of fear, safety, and community within the US. The use of sketch mapping provided direct linkages between where students perceived these characteristics and why they perceived them. I then aggregated the results in ArcGIS Pro to create synthesized maps that showed the areas of fear, safety, and community. My research offers insight on using sketch mapping on a large scale in addition to using sketch mapping to understand perceived realities.

OpenHistoricalMap: the Most Open-Ended Map in History
Minh Nguyễn, OpenHistoricalMap
OpenHistoricalMap (openhistoricalmap.org) is a time machine brought to you by the community that built OpenStreetMap. Zoom into any neighborhood in the world, turn to any time period in history, and there you will find the same micromapping detail you’ve come to expect in OpenStreetMap or – more likely – an utterly blank invitation to help build the most open-ended map in history, one story at a time.

Mount St. Helens Historic Topography Project
Joe Bard, U.S. Geological Survey
The eruption of Mt. St. Helens on May 18, 1980, dramatically changed the mountain and the areas adjacent to the volcano. Since the eruption, the U.S. Geological Survey Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO) has been documenting the topographic changes of the volcano to build a catalog of elevation datasets. Recently, this work has focused on developing DEMs from historic topographic maps. In 2022, CVO formed a co-op with the Portland Community College GIS program to engage students in this effort. In this talk, we will detail the project, our progress to date, and hear from students who have co-authored these products.

Challenging White Innocence Through an Atlas of US National Landmarks
Alethea Steingisser, Erik Steiner, Laura Pulido, Sophia Ford & Jenna Witzleben, University of Oregon
The InfoGraphics Lab is working on a new atlas – Monumental Denial: U.S. Cultural Memory and White Innocence – that explores how the more than 2,400 United States National Historic Landmarks (NHL) systematize and reflect embedded cultural narratives of white supremacy and colonialization. Through maps, data graphics, photographs, and topical essays, the atlas reveals how NHLs reinforce white innocence and deny the cultural memory of marginalized people. From the official site nomination materials to the formal public messaging at the sites, more than 90% of NHLs fail to acknowledge the racially-based events, people, and processes that are key to understanding the importance of the sites in the context of U.S. history.

Making Maps More Accessible at the U.S. National Park Service
Jake Coolidge, U.S. National Park Service / Colorado State University
As a consensus around best practices for accessible interactive maps emerges, it’s up to cartographers like myself, working with the US National Park Service, to apply these best practices. I’ll review the guidance we followed, how we tested our current maps for accessibility, made plans to address numerous issues, and began the process of remediating existing maps. This long-overdue work remains in the initial stages and is ongoing. I aim to emphasize that no matter how large and daunting the task may seem, it is possible to build partnerships and make real progress toward maps that work better for everyone.

The Junk Consortium: Cartography and World-Building
Jeffrey Linn, Conspiracy of Cartographers
As part of the Junk Consortium, I collaborated with faculty to teach world-building to students at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. The Consortium is a group of 15 universities, led by production designer Alex McDowell, imagining far-future societies built on the detritus of our current world. Alex has designed a framework for fictional societies--using mandalas to envision rich cultures--integrating politics, economy, philosophy, and environment. With a map of the world as the foundation, richly imagined societies can be created. I will present the techniques I use for creating fictional geographies, Alex's techniques for world-building, and the societies imagined by students based on these techniques and my maps.