Summary: | The objective of my research is to revive and practice the art of traditional pictorial
maps in 3D cartographic visualization. I have chosen to create both graphical and
statistical pictorial maps which can be used for the purpose of tourism and data
representation respectively. Some traditional hand-drawn and sculptural pictorial
maps of famous artists have been picked out to start as a base for my work. The
goal was to recreate or imitate the style, character and features of these traditional
hand-drawn and sculptural maps with 3D computer graphics and to analyze how
effectively 3D tools can be used to communicate map information. I also wanted to
explore ways to make these maps interactive on the Web and have them accessible to
a large number of viewers. The results show a number of interactive 3D pictorial maps
of different countries and continents. These maps are initially built with Maya, a 3D
modeling software, and converted into web pages using the Viewpoint Technology.
For statistical maps, Mel scripts have been used in Maya to take input from the
user and change the shape of models accordingly to represent data. These maps are
interactive and navigable and are designed to be easily accessible on the Web.
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