Sending off the year 2015, we present to our readers the mapmakers who contributed their work to the 2015 GeoHipster calendar.
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Jonah Adkins
Q: Tell us about yourself.
A: I’m a cartographer and a GeoHipster alumnus. I volunteer with @maptimehrva, @code4hr, and I’m into OpenStreetMap, Open Data, Music, Disney, Sports Cards, Pro-Wrestling, Ink, and paid mapping.
Q: Tell us the story behind your map (what inspired you to make it, what did you learn while making it, or any other aspects of the map or its creation you would like people to know).
A: The Noland Trail is a 5-mile escape from reality located at Mariners’ Museum Park in Newport News, Virginia. The entire park is the largest privately owned & maintained, free admission park in the US. The trail itself was dedicated as a gift from the Noland family in 1991. About 4 years ago, I set out to map the park and trail in its entirety, for a few reasons: I wanted a fun side project to try out some new techniques on, and the existing trail maps (A, B, C ) carried a few inconsistencies that left something to be desired.
Q: Tell us about the tools, data, etc., you used to make the map.
A: I spent a few weeks doing some pen & paper surveying, as well as some mobile (iPhone) data collection using Fulcrum. The map creation took about 5 months in my spare time to complete, and was done in ArcMap 10.1. I also created Open-Noland-Trail to share all of the data I collected and to learn Bootstrap. I also came across OpenTrails during this time, a cool project just for the sort of thing I was doing. I was pretty happy with the end result (for a short time), and was pleased that it has since received several awards: 1st Place Overall (2013 Virginia GIS Conference), Runner Up, Best Cartography (2013 FOSS4G), Honorable Mention (Atlas of Design Volume II), and of course, this great calendar!
