13 replies to this topic

[Matthew Hampton]

I had a thought last night and was wondering if anyone has every seen or experienced a smellable or lickable maps?

Ths possibillites seem endless (International cuisine map, etc.), however some could be rather offensive - I was just thinking of Lou's (et al.) Oyster map...

[Hans van der Maarel]

I had a thought last night and was wondering if anyone has every seen or experienced a smellable or lickable map?

Ths possibillites seem endless (International cuisine map, etc.), however some could be rather offensive - I was just thinking of Lou's (et al.) Oyster map...

Technically speaking, *any* map is lickable (but most don't taste too good...)

No, never come across those, but who knows... smell and taste can be a bit tricky to succesfully map out, but as you say, there's definately some cool applications there.

Hmmm... what if I sculpt my mashed potatoes into the shape of the continents (instead of recreating Devil's Tower *again*...)? Would that count?

[Charlie Frye]

Check w/Aileen Buckley. She did a poster session on smell-able maps at the Boston AAG (ten-ish years ago). She may even have some of the maps. The idea, as I remember it was to map an apple orchard, allowing people to smell the different varieties of apples, so they would know where in the orchard to go pick what smelled good to them.

[ELeFevre]

Mathew,
We must think a-like (scary, eh?)! Last year I started looking into creating smellable maps just for the hell of it. The big problem seems to be finding someone who can print/wipe/spray more than one smell on a sheet of paper at a reasonable cost. My idea was to create a map of the U.S. with 10-15 different smells "spread" across an associated region i.e...Kansas city BBQ....Georgia Peaches....Idaho Spuds...NY pizza...Philly cheestake, et cetera. I'd still like to pull it off. Are you interested in tackling this with me It really makes me wonder what the final "product" would smell like. I'm guessing something between a rest stop latrine and a McDonalds Happy Meal.

Scratch and sniff stickers would work too.

[Jean-Louis]

Technically speaking, *any* map is lickable (but most don't taste too good...)

Hans,
I am willing to beleive your empirical research that most maps dont taste too good but I am curious if that means that you did find some that did?

Smelly maps have great potential I guess. I could incorporate some kind of cadaver odour to my cemetery maps.
Other fragrances could include essence d'asphalt for city maps, eau-de-beer-breath for campus maps and maybe a whiff of sweat and gunpowder for military maps.

[mike]

interestingly enough, try and google "edible maps" and there are several links for recipes and ideas about making maps that you can eat. most of them are education related....

[MapMedia]

Mathew,
We must think a-like (scary, eh?)! Last year I started looking into creating smellable maps just for the hell of it. The big problem seems to be finding someone who can print/wipe/spray more than one smell on a sheet of paper at a reasonable cost. My idea was to create a map of the U.S. with 10-15 different smells "spread" across an associated region i.e...Kansas city BBQ....Georgia Peaches....Idaho Spuds...NY pizza...Philly cheestake, et cetera. I'd still like to pull it off. Are you interested in tackling this with me It really makes me wonder what the final "product" would smell like. I'm guessing something between a rest stop latrine and a McDonalds Happy Meal.

Scratch and sniff stickers would work too.

Invariably people would refer to it as the scratch-n-sniff map. But what if it got wet? Would the chemicals make some noxious reaction?

It would be a fun gag to place a 'lickable' map on a public kiosk and set up a camera to see who tries to lick it. Maybe lickable and public don't mix as well as smell and public do.

[Matthew Hampton]

I'd still like to pull it off. Are you interested in tackling this with me

I'd be a fool to turn it down.

[A. Fenix]

i think that's a great idea Erin, and I'd love to help as well. We've made a foodshed map, as a way to highlight regionality of food. I bet adding smell to a foodshed map would make foodies around the world swoon. As for an edible map, I think that the Cartographic Dinnerware (http://www.notneutra...hp?cPath=1_8_63) is much more palpable

analisa

[Matthew Hampton]

I just spent a wee bit of time [edited by poster] a brief amount of time on one of my federally mandated 15 minute breaks - on some preliminary research and I think I am going to like this project. Anytime you can throw around terms like "Micro-Encapsulated Fragrances," I think you're on to something.

Here is an interesting and brief article on the history of Scratch-and-Sniff stickers.

I guess this puts my "lenticular prism cartography" project on the back burners...

[Matthew Hampton]

I guess this puts my "lenticular prism cartography" project on the back burners...

I guess Europa Technologies, Ltd. had the same idea and ran with it...

From the 2009 International ESRI User Conference

[DaveB]

Matt,
I saw that. It was interesting to see people walking near it and suddenly realizing that it was changing before their eyes. I heard some people talking about "oh, it's like those cracker jack thingies".

There were a LOT of good maps in the map gallery this year. Made the job of the judges very difficult (in a good way!).

[Matthew Hampton]

#Thread bump

I just saw this article in the Missoulian about a map application called Stinky Maps.

It's not the same idea I had - but it's an interesting solution.

[oedipusRex_09]

Imagine mixing Mexican, Chinese and Italian food with sushi (Japan) and hot dogs (U.S. or Germany I suppose) ... Gross, yet I am still intrigued. Would the Caribbean Sea taste like coconut, or Greece hummus? I love the idea.