I was on Wikipedia and saw this map and I liked it, and then I thought to myself, “you know who else probably likes maps?”
Yehr, time for maps!
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What if we get… fictional ?
I love maps, but I can’t think of any cool ones to mention rn so I just thought “Hey, you know what, there are some cool fictional ones, and you been playing Skyrim lately so Tamriel 
”
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I used to draw simple maps for fantasy worlds I would build for fun. I’m not sure where they got to though, everything got shuffled around in the move unfortunately.
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Something neat about current ocean floor maps that look like this:
These current ocean floor maps aren’t 100% accurate because these maps are made by mapping the ocean surface! Through a technic that involves measuring changes in the ocean surface caused by increases or decreases in the mass of the sea floor which cause more or less gravitation pull on the surrounding water.
The current accurate ocean floor map looks more like this:
This is an image by a project called ‘Seabed 2030’ that aims to map and collect data to have a completed ocean floor map by 2030.
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Hooray I love maps!
I love the bit on projections, it is really interesting the ways in how a map is presented can lead us to bias. So it can be very helpful to present a familiar map in very different ways, such as flipping it upside-down, as often it can help you see things in a new way and get new insights out of a familiar map you otherwise wouldn’t.
This is helpful to me as sometimes at my work I have to create maps so I can figure things out or show info to others. I wish I could show some but I’m probably very not allowed. Maybe I can dig around for one I made back when I doing research work.
Fun fact, the physical surface of the earth and gravitational surface don’t exactly align, this has big implications in surveying. Mainly for drainage of large scale land developments, such as long remote roads. Water doesn’t necessarily go downhill, it follows gravity, so if a drainage system is built off measurements of the physical ground not adjusted with a gravity model, things might not work as expected.
It’s a whole thing in the surveying world at the moment of deciding whether to move from the traditional surface measured height datums to one derived from gravity measurements. Least it is in Australia, I think some other parts of the world have made more progress in that area. It’s all very interesting, I only kind of understand it cus I’m just a mathematician cosplaying as a surveyor.
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That's interesting, I knew about the gravitational surface being different then the actual surface. I didn't know it effects drainage like that but it makes a lot of sense.
'mathematician cosplaying as a surveyor' xD That's how I feel with a lot of things. I work in the medical field right now with an Oceanography degree. A lot people that work with me have medical field careers going or starting. I had approximant knowledge going to the job and I've pick up a lot of things. I'm just pretending to be one of them. :)
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Such a pretty map!
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Amazing map!
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Here’s a map I made using the rice method, where you dump a bunch of rice (or beans) on a paper/poster board and trace around them!
Here is the basic outline I ended up with:
And this is fleshing it out in Inkarnate! It’s still a big wip but I haven’t had the energy to fiddle with it lately. ;-;
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Ooooh yes looking at these sort of video game maps as a kid used to fill me with such wonder
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A cool and detailed map with some fun annotations. You’ll need to zoom in to really see it
I’ll be estatic if anyone recognises what its for, guesses are welcome too
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Verry cool erosion patterns on that river system
It looks like your planing a hike as the faint red line follows tracks
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Using the map scale, I very roughly say that’s like a 15km hike?
My first thought is the Grand Canyon because It looks like a canyon from the map. I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon. I relate a canyon to something popular here in the US because I’m from the US. I think the Grand Canyon is probably is steeper but I’m not sure.
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Oh this is such a good map! Is it for some kind of orienteering sport?
Like I’m guessing you start at the triangle and use a defined set of tools to try to reach as many of the circles as possible! Hence the water point and the out of bounds areas.
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Yeah it was a spectacular valley, a the line created with the dying highlighter is indeed where we planned to go
As spectacular as the valley was, it was no Grand Canyon, even if my legs afterwards felt like it was.
Very close! It’s a map for Rogaining, sport very similar to orienteering. It has a lot in common, navigation by map and compass only, you are only given the map right before the event starts, no electronic aids, finding control points, but they diverge in some key areas.
The biggest difference is in orienteering the goal is navigate to a list of control points in a specified order in the fastest time possible, while Rogaining instead specifies a time limit, gives each control point a point value, and the aim is to have the highest score at the end. Courses are purposely designed so that no matter how good you are you can’t reach even close to every control in the time period. The other big differences are duration, orienteering is more akin to long distance running, no more than 2 hours in the longest format, whereas the classic Rogines are more akin to hiking, the longest format being a whole 24 hours. The final key difference is Rogaining is a team sport, with teams of 2 to 5 members, I think out of safety due to the long event times and isolation of locations.
So this is the map I used for an 8 hour Rogaine! I haven’t done any longer ones yet, still working up to that. The red line was our planned route, the black circle was also out of bounds unexpectantly due to a fire going through there right before the event, which had the unfortunate effect of simplifying the planning process a bit. The control are with the points of in the tens of what their number is, so control 41 and 44 are both worth 40 points, the second number is just so you can tell them apart.
How did we come up with the plan to draw the map? We pinned the map to a cork board, stuck pins in every control point and used a string with to scale markings on it for every kilometer so we could test the distance of potential routes easily even with lots of curves. Then its a planning game of trying to optimize a route to collect most points for the distance you think you can cover in the time. A picture from the internet to illustrate:
Of course there’s lots of other factors too, how difficult is the terrain to traverse, how difficult will the navigations be? It may be worth following a path 2 or 3 times the distance of going in a straight line because it will work out quicker than trying to bash through the scrub.
Do you go for the big points off in the distance? Or are the clusters of smaller points actually more efficient? It’s such a fascinating game to play! Also you WILL have to adapt your route on the fly, as no plan survives contact with the real world!
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OOF that was a lot of words, if you made through it or even if you didn’t, you deserve another map.
This is a GPS recording of where we actually ended up going:
We did this loop counter clockwise, you can see where we went up the wrong ridgeline a few times, and since we lost that time we had to cut out the bottom right part of the loop. (We covered about 29km in the end)
I could go on about this for a lot longer but I feel I’m already stretching the relevancy of this thread a bit, so I’ll settle for quickly rattling off the coolest things about it.
- In the modern world of everyone having a GPS in their pocket there’s no opportunity to be truly truly lost anymore. This is a good thing! But still its very interesting to get to experience that in a semi controlled environment. It’s scary in a way nothing else feels like, but the feeling of regaining your bearings gives an equally unique feeling of utter relief and triumph
- Learning how to navigate by map and compass is fun, cool, and easier than you’d think
- The most prestigious category of Rogaining is not the Mens, but actually the mixed teams! Probably due to the fact the the most important skill is navigation rather than physical strength or endurance. This makes it a rare sport that is easy for non cis people to participate!
- Speaking of accessibility, since Rogaines are a set time rather than distance, the same event can cater to the ultra series and the ultra casual, cus people can and do choose how much distance they want to cover. 24 hour events sound ridiculously intense, but it’s normal for people to sit down for meals and get a regular nights sleep during the event, people even usually socialize have dinner with other competitors during the event, its very casual and comfy like that.
- Speaking of comfy cozy vibes, its customary of the events to provide meals at the start finish area which facilitates the above. After this 8 hour Rogaine they had a few amazing options of simple hearty meals, exactly the kind of thing you crave after a day of hiking. Everyone sat around campfires in the fading light, eating delicious food and swapping stories of how the day went for them. Such a delightful and homely experience
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I don't drink tea, but if I did, this would definitely be in my cup of it.
This activity is a perfect rogaining hiker? problem to relax/study combinatorics to. I want so badly to slap a slime mold on that map and let it go to town.
I think my actual strategy would be to mark a string at the distance (or make a loop) corresponding to what I confidently think I could cover in the allotted time and wrap as many points as I can, so it's abstracted to a puzzle game, independent of the whole activity. Even then, it'd more more than hard; it'd be np-hard. Makes sense a math nerd would be into it. Might just be a hunch, but I suspect you enjoy maths that take lots of time.
instead of making multiple posts back to back, I'm just going to append this for my fellow dirt connoisseurs
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