7 replies to this topic

[David Swanson]

Hi everybody! Dennis at Chicago Cartographics (aka chicarto) told me about this place. Looks nice!

Look forward to chatting and learning with all of you

Dave

[frax]

hi, and welcome! If you feel like it, please write a little more about your interests in the field!

[Kartograph]

Welcome!

I really do like your url, it´s so enlightened.

Happy reading


Andreas

[DaveB]

Hi everybody! Dennis at Chicago Cartographics (aka chicarto) told me about this place. Looks nice!

Look forward to chatting and learning with all of you

Dave

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Welcome!

Nice clean uncluttered site and maps.

[David Swanson]

Thanks folks! Hey frax...I'm a contractor in northern Minnesota (-14ºF yesterday!). I've been doing maps for nearly 10 years, since graduating from UMD-Duluth. Former National Geographic intern, worked for a small map company for six years, and now in my third year of freelancing.

Professionally, I like battlefield or war-themed maps, although most of my work has been street-level phone book maps. I want to become more proficient in "egghead" GIS this year - above my rudimentary abilities in mapublisher. I downloaded GRASS yesterday, so I may have some questions.

Dave

[Derek Tonn]

Thanks folks! Hey frax...I'm a contractor in northern Minnesota (-14ºF yesterday!). I've been doing maps for nearly 10 years, since graduating from UMD-Duluth. Former National Geographic intern, worked for a small map company for six years, and now in my third year of freelancing.

Professionally, I like battlefield or war-themed maps, although most of my work has been street-level phone book maps. I want to become more proficient in "egghead" GIS this year - above my rudimentary abilities in mapublisher.  I downloaded GRASS yesterday, so I may have some questions. 

Dave

Dave,

Welcome! It's good to have a few more Minnes-OH-tans around CartoTalk....I live in Springfield (down by Mankato), but also spend a fair amount of time up in Nashwauk in Itasca County every summer at my cabin.

I had to write and say hello after I FINALLY found the guy who helped develop the graphic for one of the first published "360-degree" campus maps in the country - http://homepage.mac....cart/3dmap.html I had referenced UMD's 360-degree map online for YEARS as an example of where our industry would be heading in 2000-2010...so it is fun to meet one of the "pioneers" of 360-degree mapping related to college campuses. My firm (mapformation, formerly known as tonnhaus design) is JUST getting into 360-degree/interactive mapping in 2006, as the bulk of our previous portfolio is "static" 2D and 3D perspective imagery.

At any rate, welcome to CartoTalk! I hope I get to know you better in the weeks and months to come...and I'll make sure to add your firm's web site to my own list of "industry" sites that I maintain on our firm's web site as well.

Derek

[David Swanson]

Thanks for the kind words, Derek. I'm surprised with how much mileage UMD got out of that map...I think they used it for five or six years! Too long in my opinion!

I just visited your site, and you are doing great work in that field. Maybe we can get together someday and "talk shop."

Dave

[Derek Tonn]

Dave,

Yes, UMD used that map a couple years beyond the point they probably should have. However, considering it was developed in the mid-90s, it was a PHENOMENAL and forward-thinking piece of map design. Of course now, in 2006, we can all do 20-times more on the aesthetic front than was possible with 360-degree/interactive mapping back in the mid-90s. However, I was talking about that map during some of the workshops I was presenting as late as 2001-2002, and it has actually taken the industry longer to get to where it is today (3DStudioMax, SketchUp, etc.) than I thought it would.

Thanks for the kind words related to our old/current site (tonnhaus.com). Our new web site (mapformation.com, to go "live" around March 15) will absolutely blow our old site out of the water. I almost cringe a bit directing people to our old site now that I am so tantalizingly-close to the launch of mapformation.com. We've been working on industry-changing technologies and portfolio presentation techniques non-stop since around October 2005....and I can't wait for people to get a look at the true future of our firm. tonnhaus.com probably does a decent job of showing where we were as a firm in 2003-2004, but a web site overhaul was at least 15-18 months overdue........

Have a good one! Any time you want to "talk shop", I'd love to hear from you!

Derek