INFINITE PERSPRCTIVES:
Two Thousand Years of Three-Dimensional Mapmaking
Contemporary World Map, from a Venetian edition of Ptolemy Geographica
This edition was printed in Venice by Jacobus Pentius de Leucho and
contained twenty-eight woodcut maps. This map was the first to be printed
in two colors. The cordiform, or heart-shaped projection, used here
was one of the earliest of its kind and shows the eastern part of South
America, Cuba, Hispaniola, and Labrador, and in the east the entire
far eastern coastline of Asia. Dense groupings of hatched molehills
are used on this map to portray relief.
Nova Graecia (New Greece)
To contend with the difficulties of representing topography, this map
resorts to a pictorial solution with little attempt at defining lineal
scale. The molehill serves as a placeholder within the more accurately
represented planimetric coastline. The strong repeated horizontals of
the mountain bases take on a zipper-like appearance. This hand-colored
map relies strictly on the elevational representation of mountains,
trees, rivers, and architecture. The religious forms present in the
architectural caricatures across the map reflect Munster’s interest
in religion; he taught theology at the University of Heidelberg.
La Nuova Francia (New France)
Gastaldi was a skilled engineer in the service of the Venetian Republic.
He was also one of the first professional cartographers, drawing and
designing maps on commission. This is one of ten woodcut maps he produced
for volume three of an edition of Giovanni Ramusio’s travel collection,
Delle Navigazioni et Viaggi. Relief and various illustrations are drawn
in elevation and juxtaposed upon the map. Rivers, drawn in plain, are
laid atop mountains that appear frontally and define the limits of the
mapped landscape. Changes in elevation are hinted at through the use
of hatching, which in turn creates the effect of shadow. Color is used
on the map to differentiate the lush green valleys from the brown mountainous
areas.
Tabula Itineraria Ex Illustri Peutingerorum Bibliotheca Marco Velsero (Peutinger Table)
The Tabula Peutingeriana, or Peutinger Table, is the only surviving
example of a Roman map. The work represents the Roman Empire at its
maximum extension in about 250 A.D., with some later additions up to
about 500 A.D. It depicts the imperial highways of Rome, from Britain
to the Ganges, on a one-foot-by-twenty-one-foot cartogram or “strip
map.” Although geographic relations are not drawn to any sale, the map
includes some 5,000 place names and gives accurate numeric distances
between points.
A medieval manuscript copy of the map was found in a monastery in the
sixteenth century, and was once owned by the sixteenth-century German
humanist Konrad Peuntinger, from whom its name derives. Parts of the
map were engraved and printed in 1591 by Marcus Velser. Ortelius re-drew
the map in 1598, and it was printed by the firm of Moretus. Some examples
of that issue have been preserved in roll form (like this copy), simulating
the original manuscript.
The medieval version of this map portrays the mountains in elevation
in the form of molehills; this sixteenth-century reproduction incorporates
shadow. In both maps, buildings are drawn in elevation or axonometric
projection and demarcate location, but, as in their portrayal of relief,
they incorporate caricatures that do not represent actual variations
in form.
Helvetiae Descriptio, Aegidio Tschudo auct (Description of Switzerland, made by Aegidicus Tschudi)
Ortelius’s Orbis Terrarum (Theater of the World) was the first modern
atlas and the first assemblage of maps drawn in a uniform style and
size. The included maps were borrowed from various cartographers and
then reengraved to fit the single format. The atlas contained no maps
from the classical era and it was based more on contemporary knowledge
than on theory and myth as earlier maps had been. Gerardus Mercator,
a friend of Ortelius, wrote that Ortelius had done much “to bring out
the geographical truth, which is so corrupted by mapmakers.”
Zuericher Kantonskarte (Canton of Zurich)
Swiss mathematician Hans Gyger’s detailed surveys made use of graphic
triangulation a surveying technique employing trigonometry to establish
exact relationships over long distances -- and yielded maps superior
in both their accuracy and the density of surveyed points. In 1667 he
drew the Zuericher Kantonskarte at a very large scale of 1:32,000. In
order to convey the enormous quantity of collected information, Gyger
depicted the mountain in a planimetric view for the first time in the
history of cartography. The methods he devised incorporated three-dimensional
shading and were, at the time, by far the most effective means of showing
the land’s surface in relief. Because of their advanced methods, the
maps and new techniques were considered military secret and were hidden
from Gyger’s contemporaries.
Nova Helvetiae Tabula Geographica (New Geographic Map of Switzerland)
Scheuchzer was a mathematician, physician, and geographer who produced
one of the first large-scale maps of Switzerland. He first printed an
edition of this map in 1716. The engraving attempts to overcome the
limitations of the molehill in portraying accurate relief information
by including depictions of detailed localized scenes between the map
and the border. As in Scheuchzer's Die Landschaft Toggenburg, men are
portrayed here at the lowest elevations performing everyday agrarian
tasks. The mountains that rise above them are dramatically lit and rise
above the clouds to create an evangelical effect.
Lausanne, plate 9 from Karte de Schweiz
This map is an example of the method developed by Major Johann G. Lehmann
and first published in his Theorie der Beziechnung der Schiefen Flachen
in 1799. The technique understood that light falls in vertical rays,
and so incorporated the principle “the steeper, the darker.” With this
method, the map is divided into sections called “slope hachures” that
represent bands of equal elevation. Within these divisions, lines are
drawn that represent a constant slope from their beginning to their
end. The thickness of the lines varies in proportion to the angle of
slope such that a steeper gradient appears darker.
Manuscript Map Showing Part of the Province of Salzburg
The copper engraving process developed in the sixteenth century allowed
for a much more detailed black image than did woodcuts. Likewise the
application of color on the delicate and detailed copper-engraved image
had to be more transparent and reduced in its use for aesthetic reasons.
In this hand-colored engraving, Weys uses a green color for intermediate
elevations that envelop the slope-hachured mountainous terrain. The
southern edge of the mapped area incorporates an incredible number of
small connected circles to give the appearance of rocky areas. Weys
used great care in developing a sense of texture through the use of
various lines and color techniques throughout the composition.
Carte Generale de la France par departmens. Servant a l’assemblage des 182 feuilles de al Care de France de Cassini (General map of France by departments. Part of a collection of 182 sheets of the French Carte de Cassini)
The Carte de Cassini was the first general topographic map of an entire
country based on extensive triangulation and topographic surveys and
was clearly, at the time, the most ambitious mapping project ever attempted.
However, for all of its technological advances, its methods of terrain
modeling characterize the inherent difficulties then existing in the
portrayal of relief. While some heights are indicated on the map, the
overall method of portraying relief using hachures is generally ineffective.
The edges of rivers were hatched to resemble deep canyons in a relative
flat landscape, while the ridges of mountains were left white with lines
drawn perpendicular to them, thus taking on the appearance of hairy
caterpillars.
Bathymetrical Survey of the Fresh Water Lochs of Scotland, Loch Eilt
This map, published by the Royal Geographical Society, includes spot
elevations and depths, contours, isobaths, and hypsometric tints. Longitudinal
and lateral sections through Loch Eilt provide a detailed description
of the sub-aqueous terrain. While the land contours are taken from the
Ordnance Survey, established by King George III, and are described in
feet, the isobaths do not follow the Ordnance Survey’s use of fathoms
but rather are measured in feet. The layer tints known as “hypsometric
tints” use darker colors for higher elevations, consistent with the
scheme implemented by Josef von Hauslab in 1864.
Carte du Fond des Lacs de Neuchatel et de Morat (Map of the bottom
of the Neuchatel and Morat lakes)
In this map, a minimal amount of line work and an effective use of
blue coloring give a clear understanding of the terrain below the surface
of the water. Accompanying the plan are a series of cross sections that
further describe the topography and give exact depths at various points.
Unlike elevations on land, depths in water could be easily established
through the use of an instrument called the “lead and line.” This led
to the development of the isobath, a line on a map that joins points
on the bed of a body of water situated at an equal vertical distance
beneath the surface. The first cartographer to employ a graphic technique
incorporating such data was the Dutch surveyor Pieter Bruinss, who drew
an isobath on his manuscript chart of the river Spaarne in 1584. The
earliest known printed map to show an isobath is the Golfe du Lyon published
in 1725 in Luigi de Marsigli’s Histoire physique de la mer.
Map of Oregon and Upper California from the Surveys of John Charles
Fremont and Other Authorities
In 1842 Fremont was assigned to map the Oregon Trail through the Rocky
Mountains. His report submitted to Congress in 1845, accompanied with
a map by the German cartographer Preuss, cleared up many misconceptions
about the Northwest and was an important tool in the American settlement
and expansion of the region. At the top of this map is a sectional drawing
titled “Profile of the Travelling Route from the South Pass of the Rocky
Mountains to the Bay of San Francisco.” The section is measured in feet
at 1000-foot increments.
Mount McKinley
The plastic relief model, which incorporates the “Lambert Conformal
Conic Projection,” allows for one of the most readily understood methods
of relief portrayal. With this method, the two dimensional surface of
the map is created in a mold that distorts its plastic medium through
heat and creates physical ridges and depressions. While extremely easy
to read, the technique has not been widely accepted because of difficulties
in its storage. Relief models have been used together with a instrument
called a “bench camera,” which has an extremely long focal length, to
produce accurate and fairly convincing shaded relief two-dimensional
maps.
Mount McKinley, Alaska
Dr. Bradford Washburn has devoted a large portion of his life to the
study and exploration of Mount McKinley. Now the director of the Boston
Museum of Science, Washburn climbed McKinley’s summit by the Muldrow
Route in 1942 and 1947, and was the responsible for the first ascent
of the West Buttress in 1951. He led the first photographic flights
over its summit for the National Geographic Society and Pan American
Airways in 1936, and landed the first helicopter on the mountain in
1949. The over 200 days that he has lived on its slopes and studied
its terrain is evident in this detailed cartographic masterpiece. The
map was printed by the Federal Office of Topography in Switzerland and
combines shaded relief with a soft range of blues that give the effect
of an atmospheric haze over its entirety. By using the same palette
for the contours, they do not overpower the map nor do they become the
primary graphic element, as is often the case. This map of Mount McKinley,
with its high degree of artistic and scientific achievement, represents
a renaissance in mapmaking.
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