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A cartographer drew a freehand map of North America (2019)

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Re: A cartographer drew a freehand map of North America (2019)

#41
post #39

Too bad tectonic shifts move about the same speed as the growth of a fingernail (some places even more). Land surveyors and will never go out of business. GNSS cannot possibly handle the resolution of a Multistation and theodolite.

(Current) Geodesist and Professional Land Surveyor (formerly employed as; license retained) here chiming in. While I appreciate the sentiment that we will never go out of business, I’d like to proffer a couple points related to this statement and the more technical one that followed (they’re integrally linked). While tectonic plates do move more than one might assume, it is actually those same surveyors who model this movement utilizing Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) (and other technologies) that are strategically placed and constantly collecting positional data - the National Geodetic Survey, in my opinion, is one of the most remarkable and important scientific agencies the USA maintains. Land surveying measurements rely upon the datum’s and (soon) projections NGS publishes, which indeed does account for these movements, provided the user correctly applies the velocity movement and temporal changes to the epoch desired. However, it is less this movement that keeps surveyors employed and far more their legal expertise that does. Land Surveyors are the front line maintainers, interpreters, and, in a sense, the creators/subdividers of the cadastral system responsible for private property. So long as their are (on-the-ground) boundary disputes over land and title, a surveyor will be needed. Coordinates may one day be the controlling aspect of those boundaries, but unfortunately that is not for the land surveyors to decide (I digress…a simple comment on this forum could never account for the nuances needed in that discussion).

Also, apologies, but a correction: a multi-station DOES incorporate GNSS along with a theodolite (and Electronic Distance Measurer, which, when all three are combined is marketed as a “multi station”). I believe you meant a Total Station is more precise, which is a combination theodolite/EDM, excluding GNSS, and which does, locally, produce more precise standalone measurements though at the cost of being limited to direct line of sight. Each plays an integral part of survey field work and their application.

Re: A cartographer drew a freehand map of North America (2019)

#42

I really like this article but I don't know why! > Melbourne-based Anton Thomas drew North America by hand Why North America instead of Australia, m8? Potential market size? That's so American :-) > a freelance cartographer What the hell is a freelance cartographer, what does he do, and who are his colleagues? Buster Bluth and a bunch of Earth observation satellites? That's one competitive market. > I was working as…

Montreal is in Canada, you know.

Don’t tell them that!

Re: A cartographer drew a freehand map of North America (2019)

#43
post #39

Too bad tectonic shifts move about the same speed as the growth of a fingernail (some places even more). Land surveyors and will never go out of business. GNSS cannot possibly handle the resolution of a Multistation and theodolite.

(Current) Geodesist and Professional Land Surveyor (formerly employed as; license retained) here chiming in. While I appreciate the sentiment that we will never go out of business, I’d like to proffer a couple points related to this statement and the more technical one that followed (they’re integrally linked). While tectonic plates do move more than one might assume, it is actually those same surveyors who model thi…

Thanks for your high quality response to my mediocre posting. I think our current maps are like a patchwork quilt made up of patches of high precision / high accuracy data sewn to high accuracy / low precision basemaps. Surveyors will use a ‘Horizontal/Vertical Datum of the day’ to keep things relevant to maps but in reality, their scope of work ends at xy = 5000,5000 and that’s it (relative coordinates). Most people I’ve met aren’t keeping up with NOAA. But nothing will come close to the bearings and distances (error of closure) to what a totalstation can generate in their arsenal. In the end, a Civil Engineer or GIS tech will be creating that mosaic out of the surveyor data and store it in a retrievable format for county records. The data is stored but there’s still a never reconcilable difference between survey data and mapping data.

Thus TotalStations with GNSS seem oxymoronic to me just as a GPS with a laser range finder is. There is a huge opportunity (for those interested) to build a surveyor-grade worldmap.

Re: A cartographer drew a freehand map of North America (2019)

#45
In my seventh grade history/social sciences class two of our main projects were to draw physical maps (no political borders) of Africa and North America. They were drawn on blank paper a few feet in each direction, and students would generally draw a faint grid to help with accuracy.

We were graded on the number of physical features included, and how accurately the coasts, rivers, mountains, etc. were drawn.

I wonder if anyone still teaches with similar projects. It was a great way to learn in detail about the surface of the Earth.

Re: A cartographer drew a freehand map of North America (2019)

#47

I really like this article but I don't know why! > Melbourne-based Anton Thomas drew North America by hand Why North America instead of Australia, m8? Potential market size? That's so American :-) > a freelance cartographer What the hell is a freelance cartographer, what does he do, and who are his colleagues? Buster Bluth and a bunch of Earth observation satellites? That's one competitive market. > I was working as…

> For Thomas, now—for the first time in his life—a freelance cartographer, who tours the world exhibiting the North America map, geography is a bit of a homecoming

Seems like the surrounding context answers your question. This freelance cartographer is someone who supports himself by talking about a cool map he drew.

Re: A cartographer drew a freehand map of North America (2019)

#48
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you talk more about what models of geography you're referring to? In school in the US, I was always taught there were 7 continents, including the North and South Americas as 2 separate ones. As far as I remember, there was never even a mention of other models apart from maybe some historical understanding before lands had been fully explored by Europeans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Number This, like history, is one of those dogmatic aspects of state education where only one side get taught and implicitly assumed to be the only one. Geography books need one big asterisk in so many sections

Continents are not natural features, but human determined. Some of the models don't make logical sense.

If Americas are one continent, then Afro-Eurasia must be continent. And end up with the four continent model with continuous landmasses.

If isthmuses make continent, then get the six continent model with tectonic plates.

If can split into non-geographical regions, then Europe and Asia can be separate continents and get the seven continents in the US model.

Re: A cartographer drew a freehand map of North America (2019)

#49

It is labeled correctly on his map, but he is recorded as saying something incorrect in the article: > Also Baffin Island in Greenland. So few people have been to that part of the world. Baffin Island is in Canada. Since this would be something silly for a cartographer to get wrong, I wonder if he didn't actually say "Baffin Island and Greenland" and his response was incorrectly transcripted.

FWIW, I've worked with professional cartographers, and a huge part of their focus was designing _how_ the information was displayed. They weren't specifically experts on the geography itself, though naturally they did have some steong knowledge there.

Re: A cartographer drew a freehand map of North America (2019)

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Number This, like history, is one of those dogmatic aspects of state education where only one side get taught and implicitly assumed to be the only one. Geography books need one big asterisk in so many sections

Continents are not natural features, but human determined. Some of the models don't make logical sense. If Americas are one continent, then Afro-Eurasia must be continent. And end up with the four continent model with continuous landmasses. If isthmuses make continent, then get the six continent model with tectonic plates. If can split into non-geographical regions, then Europe and Asia can be separate continents and…

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