NACIS 2024

The Shining: Mapping with Sparkle
Kenneth Field, ESRI
Some places are like people: some shine and some don't. And maps that represent these places can shine too, quite literally. I’ll share the design processes, decision-making, digital workflows, and the development of new styles to create custom thematic symbology that reflect the U.S. Total Eclipse of April 2024. I’ll do my best to share this work with a polish, rather than dull, talk on teasing out how we can make paper maps really glimmer. I’ll also share some shiny new resources for the wider community to support making maps with luster.

Hand-Drawn and Antique Map Styles with QGIS
Andy Woodruff
Do you love the look of hand-drawn maps? Are you, like me, bad at drawing things by hand? Come along to learn the next best thing: faking it with computers! We’ll look at how to create some hand-drawn and/or antique map styles in QGIS—expressions, geometry generators, and more—including general tips as well as specific styles and examples to download.

Making Data Tactile Using 3D-printed Maps
Lester Carver, Boston College
This presentation will demonstrate how to build 3D maps for printing using the free and open-source software, Blender. Going beyond printing 3D topographic maps, this talk focuses on representing spatial data in a 3D format in order to offer a mixed, visual and tactile experience for communicating data to users instead of a purely visual experience. It explores how making data tactile can make data visualization more accessible to users with limited or impaired vision and can engage users in new and unique ways.

Creative Uses of Visual Media in Storytelling
Warren Davison, Esri
Photos, illustrations, and maps are powerful tools for visual storytelling. Compositing these elements together within web maps can open the door for endless creative exploits. This talk explores some creative combinations of media and maps for storytelling in ArcGIS StoryMaps, from the conventional to the unconventional, and how they can be used to craft engaging visual experiences.

Mapping for 911/Emergency Dispatch
David Nuttall, Artimaps, LLC, and Santa Clara County Communications
This talk will look at David’s non-art maps, his “other life” as a consultant working with GIS for 911 and Emergency Dispatch operations. What are the mapping and data needs for a communications center dealing with incoming calls and then the dispatching of emergency vehicles? This talk will look at the data sources, manipulations required, the end-user facing maps and how they differ from other uses of GIS data to allow for the extremely time-sensitive workflow of a 911 center and in-vehicle use. David will use his work with Santa Clara County, CA as a use-case for all aspects of this unusual GIS workflow.

Bringing Print Techniques into the Digital World: Blend Modes for Map Tiles
Amelia Hagen-Dillon, onX Maps
Advanced blending techniques have long been used in the creation of static maps where cartographers can leverage advanced tools like Photoshop and Blender to combine raster layers in a way that adds depth and detail instead of obscuring or flattening an image. Tile-based mapping applications have struggled to leverage those tools in a scalable way. In this talk, we'll look at a method of introducing advanced blending techniques for map tiles and how we leveraged it at onX to create vibrant bathymetry tiles for lakes in Minnesota.

Vignettes for the Win!
John Nelson, ESRI
As a photography student I spent many hours in the darkroom exposing a backlit negative onto photographic paper. Without a doubt the most magical part of the process, from my perspective, was selectively exposing various parts of the print to more or less light; we called it dodging and burning. Painting with light. A large element of dodging and burning was creating a vignette around the print: a faded perimeter of more or less exposure to draw the eye into the center of the composition. Let's talk about that from the cartographer's perspective.