Tessera
Folgen

Andrew Tyrrell

@southarrowmaps.co.nz

🗺🇳🇿🇨🇦🏔 NZ-based cartographer, actually now Canada-based. Blender, QGIS, ArcGIS Pro, Illustrator. Partial to a good mountain. southarrowmaps.co.nz

255 Posts1102 Follower344 Folgt
Daniel Huffman@pinakographos.bsky.social · 5d ago

I figured out a useful generalization hack. I had a high-res railroad network, including all individual tracks. I wanted to thin this down to single lines for my map. I've used some GIS tools for this in the past, and/or manually selected segments. But this time I used some network analaysis tools.

A screenshot of some rail lines. Rail yards and spurs and double-track sections can be seen.
Andrew Tyrrell@southarrowmaps.co.nz · 7d ago

How far can I get using AI in cartography? I drove Canada's Icefields Parkway last month, and want to make a poster map of it. Can AI help, and do it well? I started on my phone, then realised it needed more than that and moved to the desktop. AI-first: Claude, a bit of ChatGPT. A thread... 🧵🗺️

A zoomed-out view of the whole basemap, roughly 285 by 311 km of the Canadian Rockies in a painterly natural style. Snow-capped ranges and white glaciers run diagonally through dark green forested valleys, with turquoise lakes and rivers threading between them, opening onto flatter green-and-tan farmland in the north-east.
Andrew Tyrrell@southarrowmaps.co.nz · 7d ago

How far can I get using AI in cartography? I drove Canada's Icefields Parkway last month, and want to make a poster map of it. Can AI help, and do it well? I started on my phone, then realised it needed more than that and moved to the desktop. AI-first: Claude, a bit of ChatGPT. A thread... 🧵🗺️

A zoomed-out view of the whole basemap, roughly 285 by 311 km of the Canadian Rockies in a painterly natural style. Snow-capped ranges and white glaciers run diagonally through dark green forested valleys, with turquoise lakes and rivers threading between them, opening onto flatter green-and-tan farmland in the north-east.
Sarah Bell@sarahbell.bsky.social · 3mo ago

It's always fun when you get to map your own city. Here's a near-completed Bellingham, Washington map I've been working on lately. Any other Bellinghamsters out there? 🗺️

Map of the city of Bellingham, Washington and its neighborhoodsclose-up of map of the city of Bellingham, Washington and its neighborhoods.
Daniel Huffman@pinakographos.bsky.social · 5mo ago

A warning for Adobe #InDesign users. I recently updated my copy, and after preparing a document, the recipient of that document sent me the alt text that popped up on one of their figures. Apparently, by default, InDesign uses AI to generate (often hilariously wrong) alt text for images.

A monochrome wireframe model of a Klein bottle.A popup showing alt text for the Klein bottle, which reads :"A 3D model of a male genitalia is displayed on a white background. AI generated content."
Robin Hawkes@robhawkes.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Did I accidentally make Ceefax for wind farms? 👾 This is a new toy that I created over the weekend, a 128x128 LED matrix display that shows the live status of any wind farm in Great Britain that's on the balancing system.

Andrew Tyrrell@southarrowmaps.co.nz · 7mo ago

For me, the key difference between these two maps of the same data is the hillshade. The non-hillshaded, academic map shows you what the elevation is. The hillshaded, media map shows you what the elevation looks like.

Robert Simmon@rsimmon.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Academic vs. media representations of a new Antarctic under-ice dataset. The sequential (University of Grenoble-Alpes) palette emphasizes overall structure, divergent (BBC) emphasizes the extremes. From Science & the BBC/@erwanrivault.com www.science.org/doi/10.1126/ www.bbc.com/news/article... 📊

Map of Antarctica’s under-ice topography with a sequential color palette (viridis, which runs from dark blue (lowest elevations) through green to yellow (highest elevations)). This palette emphasizes the overall structure of elevation, but obscures the line of bedrock between above and below sea level. The relatively "warm" yellow hues for high elevation also help them visually protrude from the "cool", low-elevation blues.
Cameron Beccario@cambecc.nullschool.net · 7mo ago

I'm excited to announce the official Nullschool app is here! earth.nullschool.net on mobile browsers works fine, but the app is nicer. Full screen display, persistence across sessions, text size that matches device settings. Even landscape works well. And, like the website: no ads! Links below ⬇️

Screenshot of the Nullschool app in landscape orientation showing wind streams over the Northern Pacific Ocean with the action menu overlaid on top.
Andrew Tyrrell@southarrowmaps.co.nz · 7mo ago

It’s my final day of five months of funemployment. It’s been wonderful travelling and exploring lots of southwestern Canada. I’m now settled in Vancouver, and tomorrow I begin a new role as a Customer Solutions Specialist at Safe Software, demonstrating how to get the most out data using FME!

Andrew Tyrrell@southarrowmaps.co.nz · 7mo ago

South Arrow Maps Wrapped for 2025: 🗃️ Projects: 21 🥸 Clients: 9 🗺️ Maps: 31 💵 Income: NZ$9,200 🌏 Countries mapped: 5* ⏱️ Total hours: 129** *mainly NZ (28), plus Germany/Austria-Hungary, England, and one global map **ish. I don’t track my hours as I go, so this is a retrospective estimate.

Alex de Campi@alexdecampi.bsky.social · 2y ago

Adobe users: it’s the most beautiful time of the year, where you can threaten to cancel your plan and get the price cut down from $59.99 to $29.99 for the next 12 months ✨ Manage plan-> cancel my plan -> continue and then you get this offer: (more)

The second step in Adobe’s “cancel my plan” workflow, where they roll over and give you everything for half price, $29.99 vs the rack $59.99 cost