Map-making has often adapted technologies designed for purposes other than making maps.
I recall Scitex hardware as the state-of-the-art in large format color computer mapping in the early 1980s when I was first learning cartography. Cartography applications were developed when Scitex, its origins in designing and printing textiles, noticed “the similarity between printing large fabric surfaces [...]
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Google Earth can display geographic data with a time component, and thus show animated maps. Animated mapping has garnered much attention among cartographers in the last decade.
I created a few Google Earth animated choropleth (literally, area-filling) maps of population change in Ohio. One map shows total population by county from 1900 to 2006. [...]
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A wiki for the State of the Map Conference (14-15 July ‘07 in Manchester, UK) links to a series of presentations (audio, and sometimes slides) on map related topics. Titles include “This Mapping Stuff Could Really Take Off,” “Why Mash-ups Suck (and Cartography Matters),” “Bringing Maps to Life,” “20 Years of Web Mapping,” and [...]
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The proliferation of mapping sites on the web provides ample fodder for critique by the map police (cartographic insiders). I usually feel a bit bad whining about the cartographic limitations of such sites. Cartographers have a history of obsessing with rules and such obsession has, arguably, limited creativity and undermined innovations. [...]
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