I got out the globe last night to visualize the flight path one of my holiday visitors will be taking from Singapore to Colorado via Tokyo. Sometimes you just want to learn old-school style.

A moment to give thanks…I’m thankful for the people who put the cartography books’ principles into action. @vtcraghead recently tweeted one of his maps, which uses a palette from Cartographer’s Toolkit.

I’m also thankful for cupcakes.

I hope everyone in the U.S. has a great Thanksgiving. I know my relatives and I will if the amount of butter currently residing in the fridge is any indication.

Today’s Colorado snow seemed like a good backdrop for GlobeMan. It wasn’t until I looked at this picture that I realized that, wow, that is one bad generalization effort. Africa and Europe look very sad indeed.

Don’t forget to tune in to James Fee’s GIS hangout today. It’s at 11am PST. PostGIS Day Extravaganza Panel.

• Made some major changes to the blog style today! I hacked at it all day today and got it to a decent state now. I’m not typically a “re-arrange the furniture constantly” type of person but am apparently keen on changing blog themes and customizations on a regular basis.
• Alan McConchie moderates weekly or bi-weekly twitter chats on a single topic, on Tuesdays from 1:00 to 2:00 MT. Today’s topic was, “Are we entering an age of democratized maps? Or are we not? What would that mean?” Follow the hashtag #geowebchat Nov. 19 for the next chat.
• GIS Lounge is conducting a survey to discover the best geo news outlets of 2013. Favorite tweeter, favorite news site, favorite event, etc. Go put in your votes!
• Here’s a great summary of changes made to the National Geographic atlases over the years. The interactive sliders are sweet! I remember creating the code for my first interactive slider back somewhere around 2005. I was comparing historic estuarine areas in the Pacific Northwest with current estuarine areas (hint: a lot less now). Memories. Nat Geo Maps Show Big Changes Since First Atlas.

The manuscript for the 2nd edition is done. Two brand new chapters, 19 new illustrations, 1 new table, 24 revised illustrations, and revisions of all the other chapters. This is a major update to GIS Cartography: A Guide To Effective Map Design. When I know more about its publication date I’ll be sure to post. As of now, I believe we’re looking at sometime in 2014.

Cheers and Happy Halloween! I know I’ll be I’m celebrating.

It is still a crazy time around the office of PetersonGIS. It may appear to be all quiet and calm but the manuscript deadline for the 2nd edition is fast approaching and things are not moving as swiftly as I had guessed. Age-old problem, I know. This is what keeps me motivated, though…the thought of getting myself one of these on THE DEADLINE DAY, Nov. 1, 2013:

Thanks to everyone who has submitted a map for potential inclusion in the book. I’m going to carefully go through all of them just as soon as I can. I was supposed to do that this week but it’s not going to happen. I’ll let you know yes or no just as soon as possible.

Currently on the radar is figuring out just what the heck is going on with ArcMap 10.1. Here’s a map from 1st edition that needs updating…

You can see it’s not entirely topologically correct. In the process of trying to export a new map, Arc wants to convert the dashed lines for the little tributaries to solid lines. But how did I solve the issue back in 2008 when writing the 1st edition? It’s a mystery! The stated workaround according to Esri is to use the symbol property editor but I’ve got these as simple line graphics as my own workaround to another problem. It really never ends. Perhaps when you pick up a copy of the 2nd edition sometime in 2014 you’ll get to find out if I ever solved it.

Updated 10 min. later—I’ve just discovered that I can simply save as a lower resolution file to keep the dashed lines. To get around the fact that I need a high res output, I’ve increased the size of the original so that it can be reduced in size proportionally to an acceptable resolution.

I’m putting out a general call for map examples to publish in the 2nd edition of GIS Cartoraphy: A Guide to Effective Map Design. All maps will be considered, digital and print. I’m looking for examples of all kinds of maps so submit what you’ve got.

They need to be owned by you or, if not, the copyright permissions must be easily securable in a short timeframe. We aren’t paying money for the maps, for which I am very apologetic, but they will be in a book that was considered a best seller the first time around by it’s publisher so it is likely to gain you some exposure.

These maps are to be featured in the “map examples” section of the book. A short description of each map will be placed beneath it. The maps are not critiqued, just used as examples.

You must be able to supply a high resolution file or screen shot (via quite a large monitor for scaling down). Vertically oriented maps look best as the book is in a vertical format, but I can consider horizontally oriented maps as well.

There’s a “contact” link in the right-hand side bar that you can use to submit. Thank you!

*We’ll be trying to limit the book to one map per author. If you already have a map being published in the book, don’t submit another one.