Drawing on the Past: Enlivening the Study of Historical Geography at maps.nypl.org
by Matt Knutzen, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Map Division
This new website is a parallel snapshot of all maps currently available on the Digital Gallery as well as a powerful set of tools designed to significantly enhance the way we access and use maps and the cartographic information they contain.
The first such enhancement is in how historic maps are viewed. The user interface of maps.nypl.org allows zooming and panning in a way that has come to be expected by users of web maps (Google Maps, Bing Maps etc...)
The next is georectification, which we are calling here “warping”, a familiar term to GIS professionals and few others. Map “warping” is the process where digital images of maps are stretched, placing the maps themselves into their geographic context, rendered either on the website or with tools such as Google Earth.
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One of the most exciting aspects of this project is its participatory nature, meaning that anybody with a computer can create an account, log in, and begin warping and tracing maps, whether for a school or personal project or otherwise. And when the project is complete, the contribution remains in place (à la Wikipedia and openstreetmap.org), adding one more piece to this new historical geographic data model.
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