It's Cool, Man! (GIS 3015/3015L- Cartographic Skills)

Jumping into this week brought 3D excitement! Not only that, but an introduction into ArcScene. We were assigned to complete a training course via ESRI online. The course covered the benefits of 3D and early concepts to gain an understanding. These included defining base heights, enhancing 3D views, and generating 3D objects from 2D features.

During the course, several assignments were completed and the map shown here is one of them. To start with, this was only a raster elevation layer of an area around Minneapolis-St. Paula, the Mississippi River is also present. Given that this is a surface area of square kilometers and the difference between the high and low elevation values is only 132 meters, the scene looks quite flat. Adding Vertical Exaggeration allows for more depth in the terrain. The Calculate From Extent function was used, which based the exaggeration on the z-values and horizontal extent of the data.

But why create a map in 3D? Well, because we live in a 3D world! The perspective that a 3D map can offer can be valuable, it can also increase understanding and create imagination. Say that a new skyscraper is being proposed in a major city. A photo-realistic map could be created of the new building at its proposed location in the midst of the surrounding area. This could offer a visual look into how the area will look once it is constructed. From a cartographic view, we could remove the high resolution textures and simply apply varying colors to the proposed building and the surrounding buildings. The colors could represent current levels of power consumption of neighboring buildings and the estimated consumption of the proposed skyscraper.

Although beneficial, there are disadvantages to 3D. First being the possibility of the hiding of content from varying perspectives. This could promote lying with the map, something that certainly needs to be avoided. Another is how easy it is to get disoriented. A north arrow can generally solve the issue but if the map is interactive and the user is exploring a large area, it would be frustrating to become lost. Finally, the difficulty that authoring a 3D map presents, especially if it is translated from a 2D map rather than being designed from the ground up. This comes back to the first point of perspective and hiding content, since depending on the orientation the map is published, issues might arise. An interactive map can solve issues of perspective and there are online resources that allow for uploading to the web for anyone to view. But this will only work if the user is willing to orient and explore the map.

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