[OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source Geospatial Atlas

[Michael P. Gerlek]

Barry:

This is the coolest idea I've heard in a long time.

ESRI does a yearly coffee-table book for Arc-generated maps, the various satellite companies make calendars every year with their best hi-res shots... We should play the game too. 

Count me in, I'll volunteer to help.

.mpg

On Jul 28, 2012, at 4:33 AM, Barry Rowlingson <b.rowlingson at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:

> Do you think an atlas of beautiful maps produced with open-source
> technology (software and data) could be made? Here's what I was
> thinking:
> 
> * Put out a proposal for beautiful cartography, stunning maps, and
> insightful visualisations done with OpenSource applications and/or
> Open Data.
> 
> * Collect map proposals as images on a flickr group:
> http://www.flickr.com/groups/osgeomaps/
> 
> * Get enough, have a community vote/expert opinion for the best 50 or so.
> 
> * Get high-res or vector versions of the winners.
> 
> * Get authors to write a note for the book, explaining the software,
> the techniques, and the impact of their work.
> 
> * Edit them into a glossy colour book, publish on a publish-on-demand
> site (eg lulu.com).
> 
> * Give free copies to the authors of the top ten voted maps or maybe
> all the ones included (I'll pay for these unless someone wants to
> sponsor it).
> 
> * Release the PDF under an open license. Of course.
> 
> * Profit!! [By selling copies on lulu at a small premium for OSGeo]
> 
> I don't think the production effort is very much, I just wonder if
> enough people are producing maps that will look good in A4 or larger
> (we're all about the web these days, right?) and if publicity can be
> sustained enough to get 50 nice maps. The timeline would be set so we
> have lots of glossy copies of these sitting around for sale at FOSS4G
> 2013.
> 
> Good idea? Or will we just get 45 maps which are stamen.com
> watercolour backgrounds with some points pasted on? There is a
> perception which I think we've all heard that Open Source GIS packages
> can't do cartography, but with a little help from Inkscape I've seen
> some great-looking maps on posters at conferences.
> 
> ESRI used to (still do?) produce an Arc/Info atlas (I have a vague
> memory of something A3-size in our GIS research lab 20 years ago) of
> maps - surely we can do something like that now. Obviously I'm
> sticking my hand up to do the work for this, my concern is purely
> whether we'd get enough entries. I'd like the bar to be quite high.
> Most of the work is going to be done by the mappers themselves.
> 
> Shoot.
> 
> Barry
> 
> -- 
> blog: http://geospaced.blogspot.com/
> web: http://www.maths.lancs.ac.uk/~rowlings
> web: http://www.rowlingson.com/
> twitter: http://twitter.com/geospacedman
> pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacedman
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