Thermography of city of Ghent (Belgium)

In March 2010, the city of Ghent was thermographed during the night in order to show heat loss of rooftops. The data are made available through a website but also as a service which is combined here with the large scale basemap made available by the Flemish Government. Another interesting fact about this map is that has been published by a private portal for ArcGIS from the Flemish Government, not on arcgis.com.

Leuven 1649, historic map with modern legend...

Reviving a historic map by digitizing the old legend as map pins. This map has numbers on locations of public buildings, places and religious buildings which refer to a legend at the right op the map. On this web map the legend was redigitized as map pins on the map. Certain locations were also completed with a wikipedia picture and link to get more information on the item. The University town of Leuven has changed a bit in 400 years. It is remarkable on the map that most of the gullies around the town are shown as dry. This was probably a realistic situation since only the areas where the river Dyle is flowing in and out of town are shown with water. If you want to compare the old map with the current situation, this application shows you a synchronized view on both maps.


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Titanic: no one can escape the publicity...

This map was made in the wake of the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster. A complete web map application on the passengers can be opened here. The map below shows the icebergs, warnings and rescue ships 100 years ago.


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Tienen 1649 Atlas van Loon

This is probably the source of the two maps on the battle of Tienen described below. It is a beautifully detailed map which uses already some of our modern techniques to show different items on the map. Note the different roof colors which were used to indicate civilian houses or churches, chapels and public buildings.



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The battle of Tienen 1635

Another historic map which has been georeferenced roughly. The 3D map was made between 1635 and 1700 when the Northern Dutch and the French troops reconguered the city of Tienen in Flanders from the Spanish. Although the city was burned almost completely during the battle, many streets can still be found today. The number of churches and chapels has declined however. Annotations on the map also show the entry ports to the city. A similar drawing (different version) which as dated on 1651 can be found here. To be able to compare different maps, there are two tools on arcgis.com to enable this: a comparison web application or a slider map. Both are available: a comparison between the two historic maps and Bing maps and a slider map between the two historic maps.


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Antverpiae Civitatis Belgicae Toto Orbe 1557

This map was made using the Esri Portal for Organizations and shows what can be done with historic material in a geoportal. Even though the map was not georeferenced, it is possible to add annotations which can provide more information on items shown. This is a map of the city of Antwerp drawn in 1557.


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Historic Map: Tokyo 1680 (David Rumsey)

Is this a geographic map or is this artwork? Both can be shown on arcgis.com. This week I gave a lighting talk at the Esri 2012 Developer summit on use of Arcgis Online for Historic maps. This map of Edo (Tokyo) differs hugely from the present day metropolis, with the exception of the area in the center of the map around the Imperial Palace, which has remained largely unchanged for over 300 years. Many properties are identified and cultural features such as temples are delineated pictorially.



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