
Unusual Maps - apsec112
https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0002yI
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m12k
This is like lettersofnote.com, but with maps instead of letters - very
interesting, feels like something you can dig into repeatedly, with many
rabbit holes to follow. For anyone interested in this, you might also want to
check out the book "The Writer's Map: An Atlas of Imaginary Lands" which
contains maps from various authors for use in their books (mostly sci-fi and
fantasy, since those genres are the ones that need a map that doesn't already
exist).

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082349872349872
today i enjoyed [https://www.armellecaron.fr/works/les-villes-
rangees/](https://www.armellecaron.fr/works/les-villes-rangees/)

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nxpnsv
That’s really cool and perhaps a be little useless, I’ll try to make my own...

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hezag
My favorite unusual map is probably AuthaGraph:

> This rectangular world map called AuthaGraph World Map is made by equally
> dividing a spherical surface into 96 triangles, transferring it to a
> tetrahedron while maintaining areas proportions and unfolding it to be a
> rectangle.

> The world map can be tiled in any directions without visible seams. From
> this map-tiling, a new world map with triangular, rectangular or
> parallelogram’s outline can be framed out with various regions at its
> center.

[http://www.authagraph.com/projects/description/%e3%80%90%e4%...](http://www.authagraph.com/projects/description/%e3%80%90%e4%bd%9c%e5%93%81%e8%a7%a3%e8%aa%ac%e3%80%91%e8%a8%98%e4%ba%8b01/?lang=en)

> It shows there are no "four corners of the earth" by arranging several world
> maps without visible seams around a world map with color. You can see
> Antarctica at the right bottom is close to not only South America but also
> Africa and Australia.

[http://www.authagraph.com/products/map/product-
article-01/?l...](http://www.authagraph.com/products/map/product-
article-01/?lang=en)

~~~
DiogenesKynikos
The Peirce Quincuncial Map can also be seamlessly tiled: [1].

It's a conformal map, meaning that it preserves shapes. But strange things
happen at the four corners of each diamond-shaped tile. If you go around one
of those points on the map, you've actually gone around the real point on
Earth _twice_. Also at those points, opposite directions on the map are
actually the same direction on the Earth. The technical description of those
four points is that they're singularities of the map projection (derivatives
of the form d(location on Earth)/d(map coordinate) are undefined).

The map looks fine because the four singularities on each tile are in the
middle of the ocean. But if you play around with the projection to put any of
the singularities inside a landmass, your head will explode.

Looking at the AuthaGraph may you linked, it has at least two singularities on
each tile.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peirce_quincuncial_projection#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peirce_quincuncial_projection#/media/File%3APeirce_quincuncial_projection_SW_20W_tiles.JPG)

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giarc
Edward Tufte's book "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" is a
classic that is still relevant today. It was written before Excel charts etc
but the key concepts, especially "less ink is better", is something that
everyone should subscribe to. It also contains my favourite chart which is
Charles Joseph Minard representation of Napleons march (and subsequent
retreat) to Russia. It shows the size of the army, relevant to location and
temperature.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minard.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minard.png)

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supernova87a
Actually, the key point is not that less ink is better -- the idea is that
every bit of ink should be as _information-dense_ as possible, in order to
communicate the points desired.

"Less ink" leads to people dumbing down plots for bad reasons. Or in the
interest of "clean design" making charts that are uninformative.

Charts should be very detailed when they _need to be_. But the information
should reveal and help the reader to draw conclusions visually, not obfuscate.

He gives these examples, which are highly detailed, and dense in information.
Every piece of ink is informative, yet at multiple levels of viewer "zoom"
there are meaningful takeaways that can be identified:

[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c8/18/bc/c818bc89caa283bd4307...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c8/18/bc/c818bc89caa283bd4307b545c8b25d6c.png)

[https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/images/0003Kf-26845/VEp94...](https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/images/0003Kf-26845/VEp94.jpg)

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twic
The moon maps reminded me of porkchop plots, which are maps of a sort:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porkchop_plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porkchop_plot)

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dandare
Shameless plug: I used Sankey diagram to visualise country budget:
[https://uk.wikibudgets.org/w/united-kingdom-
budget-2015](https://uk.wikibudgets.org/w/united-kingdom-budget-2015)

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nicbou
It's missing the greatest of infographics, by Minard. It's a clever
representation of the Grande Armée's campaign in Russia, describing time,
battles, temperature and casualties on a single graph.

[https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard#/media...](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard#/media/Datei%3AMinard.png)

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eindiran
Tufte definitely has something of a soft spot for Minard. He discusses that
particular map on page 40 - 41 of _The Visual Display of Quantitative
Information_ (in the section "Narrative graphics of space and time"), and his
site has a page devoted to it/the sources used to produce it:
[https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard](https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard)

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digitalsanctum
I'm a big fan of Edward Tufte after attending one of his courses and gaining a
new appreciation of data presentation.

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drewmate
Likewise. I attended his seminar last year at the recommendation of a
colleague and it was a day well spent. I assume he probably won't be doing
such large courses this year, which is a shame. I'd recommend his course to
anyone who gets a chance to attend whenever he starts them up again.

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EE84M3i
Chrome says insecure - is this a professional site?

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aflag
This seems to be the offending image:
[http://ianwojtowicz.com/Red%20Shift/Red-Shift-
Earth-6400px.j...](http://ianwojtowicz.com/Red%20Shift/Red-Shift-
Earth-6400px.jpg) which is now a 404 anyway (or rather, it's a 301 followed by
a 200 with text explaining it should be a 404).

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vszakats
Working link for the above image:
[https://ianwojtowicz.com/Earth%20Doppler/Red-Shift-
Earth-640...](https://ianwojtowicz.com/Earth%20Doppler/Red-Shift-
Earth-6400px.jpg)

