Tag Archives: cartography

Esri UK Conference 2019 Recap
Every year towards the end of May, Esri UK, the UK distributer for Esri software, holds a user conference across the road from Westminster, the home of the UK parliament (when I was there I even got to see Jacob Reese Mogg). It’s held at the QE2 centre, and there are amazing views from the fifth floor which allow...

Where on Earth Is the Offset in ArcGIS Pro?
Life used to be nice and easy for us GIS guys. We used to roll out of bed, click start on our GIS software, go back to bed for an hour, and then think about making a nice simple 2D map. Then, all of a sudden everyone starts talking about 3D GIS and being able...

What’s within a 30-minute Walk – Revisited
I recently had reason to be in London for a short meeting and walked past London Bridge, looked at the sky around me, and thought, “I wonder how accurate that map I made last year is?” I was fortunate to have my camera phone with me so that I could take a few pictures. The...

Interview with Esri’s Ben Flanagan
Ever wonder who makes those maps you see in the newspaper? Ben has made maps for the Telegraph, the Guardian, and BBC News, and best of all (to me) he’s from the UK! Ben is like a ninja—not many people know about him but those that do are avid fans of his work. It was...

Creating Album Covers with GIS—or Drawing Elevation as Vector Lines
In July 2014, a developer and neocartographer from Scotland created the “Joy Divionesque 3D Map.” This began a four-year onslaught of maps that replicate the style of the iconic Joy Division album cover, “Unknown Pleasures.” How does it work? Essentially the elevation is taken from an underlying terrain or digital surface map as points, which...

My First Trip to the Esri UC
No matter what flavor of GIS you roll, there is no ignoring the annual Esri user conference in San Diego. The highlight is the opening plenary session which is always given by the (co) founder of Esri, none other than Jack Dangermond. To discuss this fully, we have to start at the beginning, which was...