Tell Us About Yourself
I am a Cartographer and GIS developer. Currently, writing a thesis at TU Wien under the Cartography Master’s. My background is in Geodesy, not directly connected to maps, since I worked more in the field. And when you are not in the field, geodesists process data or create topographic maps. Topographic maps are amazing, but when you make them for the government, there are many standards and restrictions that kill your creativity. That’s how I realized geodesy isn’t quite what I want. Getting into a completely new job field was scary, so transitioning to the adjacent one was smooth. So, that’s how, after finishing a Bachelor’s in Geodesy, I immediately changed my job direction to GIS and Cartography. Since then, I have gradually improved my design skills. That’s why I am right now in one of the best Master’s in Cartography.
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)
The map was created during a design challenge with visiting professor Rob Roth from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Later on, this map was included in the UN SD book.We worked in a team of 3 people on a chosen topic of one of the SDGs – Climate Action.
The inspiration arose from the data availability that we came across – NASA FIRMS fire points. The idea was to create a burning effect on the map without introducing noise. I thought about grid aggregation and came across the hexagonal grid. Hexagons are a great choice as they aggregate the data while preserving relative spatial patterns. You can still see where the earth burns more in a visually balanced and appealing way.
The final result is a map with hotspots, very close to the way the data should be visualized with raw numbers. The final challenge is also reached – map “glowing in a dark”. There are a few ways to improve this map’s design and layout, as well as expand the time range and the way data is processed (excluding industrial burnings, which significantly affect the final count in hexagons).
I learned the most burning regions are in Africa. Apart from that, I discovered a really cool data visualization technique: hexagons. Now, it is one of my favorite map-making techniques when I have a lot of points.
Tell is about the Tools, data, etc., that you used to make the map
Python was used to process downloaded data from the FIRMS website. In QGIS, we performed spatial aggregation and map design. Finally, in Figma, we made the final layout design.